The First Journey - 1492: Sailing to the Unknown

The Santa Maria was where it all began.

This was going to my first and one of my most significant voyages. Young sailors, especially 18 year old ones were almost unheard off but yet I found myself on the Santa Maria as one of the sailors on the ship. We sailed from Palos de la Frontera on August of 1492. This was not the only Spaniard ship on its way to the New World, we were accompanied by the Nina and the Pinta.

The journey was arguably one of my most challenging ones as sense of direction was not clear and our navigation relied on the stars and our imprecise maps. As an addition, disease was spreading and our only remedy for that would be lemon and herbs.

We ultimately arrived after two months, around October on an Island. We arrived at what we would later call San Salvador, in the Bahamas. I was shook the entire time we were on water but as soon as my foot hit the land a sense of accomplishment and inspiration would fill my body. Columbus would then order sail around to different Islands in hopes of finding precious stones like pearls, silver, gold, etc. We later arrived on what we would call Juana. Columbus named Juana after Prince Juan of Spain, which would be later on named Cuba. After the discovery of the Juana, we made one last stop on what was called Hispaniola, meaning "little Spain". The Santa Maria, the ship I sailed on, would later on sink upon our arrival to Hispaniola and Columbus established a place called "La Navidad", which would become the first European establishment in the New World. On these new islands we encountered different types of Indigenous people, we believed that they were the Tainos. After discovering all this about the new world, Columbus ordered the return back to Spain as he wanted to report all his findings. Columbus would go on to write a journal describing the people we encountered, mentioning that they are uneducated, bear no hands (unarmed) and would make great servants.