Columbus Leaving Shoals of Cuba: On Second Voyage, June-August 1494

Accepting the tale of the son of Columbus, it was on June 13, 1494, that Christopher Columbus decided to return to Hispaniola. The Admiral had been exploring the southern and westernmost coast of Cuba for several weeks already. Continually running into shoals, sandbars, bad luck, illness, his dispirited, even fearful, companions saw that it was clear they had to do something else. Taking aboard provisions at Isla de Evangelista, they then set off in a wrong direction.

This misdirected trip got them stuck again, on 30th of June, damaging the ship. When they could break free they found themselves in water only twelve feet deep.

"On top of these difficulties, they met every day at sunset with violent squalls of rain, which blew down from the hills on the further side of the lagoons which border the sea. They were greatly afflicted and troubled by these until they reached the eastern coast of Cuba along which they had sailed on their outward voyage. From here, as when they had passed before, there blew a scent as of the sweetest flowers."

By the 7th of July they landed there, came ashore and heard mass. A well-travelled local cacique sat with them and listened 'attentively'. After, the son of Columbus tells us clearly, that this man said he agreed, that it was a good thing,

"... a very good thing to give thanks to God, since if the soul was good it went straight to heaven and the body remained on earth and that the souls of wicked men must surely go to hell." [p. 180]

This straightforward expression of some of the most complex of Christian ideas, the soul, heaven, hell, gratitude to God are all put in the mouth of a local chief.  How could this be? How could it be more than mere parrotting of the sermon? How could a local articulate to Christians, in a language they would understand (?) these core understandings of Christian faith, unless it were some sort of miracle? It certainly stretches credulity, if not possibility. But there it is in this tale from the pair of  father and son Columbus. They would stay here and repair and replenish for over a week.

Leaving this place by 16 July, weather battered them again, forcing a heading to Cabo de la Cruz. A giant wave almost submerged them, they began taking on water 'from the bottom planks' faster than they could pump it out. Everyone was exhausted, from the rough seas, the miserable rations, the 'pound of rotten biscuit' and 'pint of wine' a day. Even Columbus wrote he ate the same as the rest of the men.

"Pray God that it be in His service and in that of your Highness. Otherwise I would never subject myself to these hardships and dangers. Every day we seem about to be engulfed by death." [p. 181]

 It was on the 18th of July they reached Cabo de la Cruz, welcomed by the locals with 'plenty of their cassava bread... much fish and... fruit...'. But there was not a favorable wind to Hispaniola. So they set out for Jamaica, which theyquickly reached by July 22. Here the locals gave them food as well, which the sailors said they preferred to that of the other islands. So it was here that they spent the next month exploring that island's lush coast,  friendly, food-bearing locals, and fair weather. By August 19, they set a course again for Hispaniola.
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quotes, pagination from: The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, The Penguin Group, London, 1969