Belated Happy Birthday 424, bejaysus there are so many family birthdays in October, trust you spent it seeking wisdom and spinning yarns, sounds like seafaring talk, bring back the catalytic rum ration I says I to loosen tongues and laughter!
And so for a hornpipe of an October tale fit for an old salt.
After twenty-nine days with no sight of land, on October 7, 1492, the crew spotted 'immense flocks of birds', some of which the sailors trapped and established as 'field' birds (thought to probably have been Eskimo curlews and American golden plovers). As a result Columbus changed course to follow their flight path.
Land was first sighted at 2 a.m. on October 12, 1492, by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodriguez Bermejo) who was a member of the crew aboard
La Pinta. Columbus himself, exhibiting considerable early capitaist greed, would later assert that the first sight of land had been his, thus enabling him to claim the reward of 10,000 maravedis (about $1,300 in today's terms). Columbus called the island San Salvador, in the present-day Bahamas or Turks and Caicos; while the indigenous residents had named it Guanahani but what did they know about building empires. Exactly which island in the Bahamas or Turks and Caicos the sighting corresponds to remains unresolved; the primary nominations are Samana Cay, Plana Cays, Grand Turk, or San Salvador Island (named San Salvador in 1925 in the belief that it was the true Columbus' San Salvador) but evidence remains scanty.
Columbus proceeded to observe the people of the region, who he found to be extremely friendly, writing descriptions their culture, social order and lifestyle for his royal patrons back in Europe. He also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, landing on October 28, 1492, and the northern coast of Hispaniola, present day Haiti and Dominican Republic onward through to early December.