My crew and I set sail from Palos on August 3rd in the year of our Lord, 1492. My three ships, Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were manned by a crew of about ninety men plus three doctors, a translator, a secretary, an accountant and three servants. We stopped on the island of Grand Canary to repair our ships and gathered provisions on the island of Gomera from whence we commenced our sailing. We were now one month into the expedition and things were going fine. This calm lasted for about one month more, then the crew began to get restless.
I must thank the Pinzon brothers for helping me to get the fleet to settle down and thank God, my Holy Saviour, for bringing the welcome site of land into view not a moment too soon. This was in the wee hours of October 12th and as I mentioned before I believe this was divine intervention and so I named this first island that we sighted, San Salvador. I saw some natives on the island and because I believe that we are somewhere near Japan or China I shall refer to these inhabitants as Indians. We entered the Bay of Bariay which is just off Cuba on October 28th and thinking I was close to the Asian mainland we explored the harbours in the area. We came to an island we called Hispaniola.
Disaster struck on the night of Christmas Eve. I lost one of my ships, the Santa Maria which split apart when it struck a reef near Cap- Haiten. I left about 40 of my men on that island to hunt for gold and the rest of us set off on our return voyage on the two remaining ships.
References
The World Book Encyclopaedia International,(1996) Vol 4.pp207-213.Chicago. http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/columbus.html
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