Two doctors were taken, as well as a baptized Jew, who spoke Hebrew and Arabic, and might be useful as an interpreter when the expedition came over the ocean to India. Curiously enough, Columbus had no chaplain on board, but before he set sail his friend the prior administered the sacrament to all his men, who in the opinion of most were doomed to a watery death.
Armed with a royal despatch to the Great Khan of Mongolia, Columbus stepped on board the Santa Maria, the moorings were cast off, and on August 3, 1492, the three ships steered under full sail out into the open sea.
They kept on a south-westerly course, and in six days reached the Canary Islands, where the little fleet stayed a month to repair some damages and patch up the Pinta's broken rudder.
On September 8 a definite start was made, and when the lovely Canary Islands and the Peak of Teneriffe sank beneath the horizon, the sailors wept, believing that wind and sails would carry them from the world for ever, and that nothing but water and waves awaited them in the west.
From the first day Columbus kept a very exact diary, which shows how thoroughly he embraced Toscanelli's theory and how implicitly he relied on his fellow-countryman's calculations. To his crews, however, he represented the distance as short, so that their fears should not be increased by the thought of the great interval that separated them from the Old World. They became more anxious as days came and went, and still nothing but boundless deserts of water spread in every direction.
After a week's sail their keels ploughed through whole fields of floating seaweed, and Columbus pacified his men by the suggestion that this was the first indication of their approach to land.
The Santa Maria was a broad and clumsy vessel, really intended to carry cargo. She was, therefore, a slow sailer, and the other two ships usually took the lead. They were of more graceful build and had large square sails, but were of barely half the tonnage of the flagship. But all three kept together and were often so close that shouts could be heard from one ship to the other. One day Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, called out to Columbus that he had seen birds flying westwards and expected to sight land before night. They therefore sailed cautiously lest they should run aground, but all their apprehension ceased when a sounding-line two hundred fathoms long, lowered through the floating sea-wrack, failed to reach the bottom.
Their progress was stopped by several days of calm, and it was September 22 before the sea-weed came to an end and the vessels rolled again out to the open bluish-green water.
Through hissing surge the Santa Maria and her two consorts cut their way due west. A more favourable breeze could not be wished. It was the trade wind which filled their sails. The sailors were afraid of the constant east wind, and when at length it veered round for a time, Columbus wrote in his journal: "This head-wind was very welcome, for my men were mightily afraid that winds never blew in these seas which would take them back to Spain."
Toscanelli's map was sent backwards and forwards between Columbus and Pinzon, and they wondered where they really were, and how far it was to the islands of eastern Asia. On September 25, Pinzon ascended the poop of the Pinta and called out to Columbus, "I see land." Then he fell on his knees with all his crew, and, with voices trembling with excitement and gratitude, the Castilian mariners sang "Glory to God in the Highest." This was the first time a Christian hymn had sounded over the waves of the Atlantic. The sailors of the Santa Maria and Niña climbed up into the rigging, and also saw the land and raised the same song of praise as their comrades. But next day the longed-for land had vanished. It was only a mist which lay over the sea to leeward, a mirage in the boundless desert of water.