Left, making sail on the new Nina, Summer 1990.
the observance of set ritual comes through as an underlying force that holds things together and makes things work. "I was fascinated watching this city and the activities of the people in it, and astonished to hear the marine language they used," he observes at one point, "wh ich I did not understand any more than the priestly dialect of the Brahm in s." Of relations between the pilot, " lieutenant of the wind," and the crew, he observes " I have not seen a gentleman so well served nor have I seen knaves who serve so well to merit their wages as ¡sailors." Ritual marked Columbus 's depa1ture. In the pre-dawn darkness of August 3, Columbus received communion, presumably at St. George's, and so dedi cated to hi s sav ior was rowed out to the looming bulk of the ship he would sa il into immortality- the unexceptional Atlantic workhorse Santa Maria. Accident had chosen hertoconnecttheO ld World to the New and open a new awareness of the ocean world to mankind everywhere. But to Columbus, surely, in thi s moment of setting out on the sea trail westward, none of what was happening was accidental but rather providential. And in Palos it was no accident that Columbus was where he was and was headed where he planned to go--660 miles to the south and west (clear of the Atlantic westerlies that had frustrated the daring Portuguese in their first-class ships), to where the steady winds blow fair for the outbounding voyager, in a
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windbelt that became famo us in later centuries as the Northeast Trades. Nor were the Santa Maria, still less her fast-sailing carave l consorts, really accidental upon the scene. These were the first generation of ships that could ride the Trades gloriously , and battle their way home through winter North Atlantic storms. Columbus c learl y knew these things about hi s ships, as he knew where the winds blew that they would need to make their voyage. Aboard the ships, anchors were weighed at about quarter to five on the cairn bright morning of August 3, heavy yards hoisted aloft, and sai l unloosed . If we are to believe our madcap travel writer Salazar (as in thi s instance I feel we can), an older seaman would step forward to lead a song as chanteyrnana song that might begin (as one did in Sa lazar's ship): " Hoi st 'er up! God , keep us, who are your servants. We want to serve the faith well , to maintain the Christian faith and to confound the pagan Mohammedans and Saracens .. ." ending more raucous ly: " Long live love for the young man who makes merry!" The fleet stood downriver on the ebb tide, and using the lon g oars called sweeps, the heavily laden hulls were rowed along so that they could be steered-as they could not be if they drifted helplessly along with the current. One may picture another kind of music in thi s slow process, the creak of wooden oars against the bearers in the bulwarks, and doubtless someone calling out or singing the cadence aboard each ship. This too, was ritual, if you will, effective in the physical realm as the religious ritual was in another realm . A lthough to Columbus and his sailors, these realms were intertwined and united in ways they tend not to be for us in the late 1900s. Still it 's a plain damn fool who doesn ' t know that a clean conscience and a merry heart puts more ergs into the water at the business end of a sweep-and moves the boat along. After about half an hour, about the time of sunrise, the fleet would have passed La Rabida Monastery and heard the friars chanting the office for prime, which Columbus had often shared in
as hore. It is difficult not to believe with Morison that the ships shared in this observance. The fleet then came into the River Saltes and floated on down through sandy shores to the sea. At e ight in the morning they crossed the bar at the river mouth and came into the open sea. There they meta "strong sea breeze," blowing probably a little south of west, so that the best course they cou ld steer was south , making on ly four knots-in other words jammed hard on the wind and making slow going of it. At sunset land was still in sight on their left hand. But during the night the wind veered round to the north and at some point in the dark hours, when Co lumbus felt he had enough offing from the shore, he ordered the course set south and by west, for Africa and the Canaries. D
A Note on the Sources: The quotations from Gianna Granzotto' s work are from his Christopher Columbus (University ofOklahoma Press, Norman and London, 1987)- a perceptive appreciation ofthe Discoverer's life and work. Samuel Eliot Morison speaks to us in lively but authoritative fashion in his biography Adm iral of the Ocean Sea and in the European Discovery of America; The Southern Voyages (0.lford University Press , London, New York, etc., 1974). Salazar's words came to us from Carla Rahn Phillips in her "Life at Sea in the Sixteenth Century," James Ford Bell Lectures, No. 24 (University of Minn esota, 1987).
In this contemporary woodcut at right, a nao of Santa Maria's era rolls along with a fair wind.
SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990