Freak waves also known as Rogue waves (Part 1)

Freak waves also known as rogue waves, monster waves, episodic waves, killer waves, extreme waves, and abnormal waves are relatively large and spontaneous surface waves that occur far out in open water, and are a threat even to large ships and ocean liners.

In oceanography, rogue waves are more precisely defined as waves whose height is more than twice the significant wave height, which is itself defined as the mean of the largest third of waves in a wave record. Therefore, rogue waves are not necessarily the biggest waves found on the water; they are, rather, unusually large waves for a given sea state. Rogue waves seem not to have a single distinct cause, but occur where physical factors such as high winds and strong currents cause waves to merge to create a single exceptionally large wave.

Few pictures of Freak waves. They are scary, no doubt:

My Alama Mater- St.Joseph's College, Colombo, Sri Lanka

St. Joseph's College is a Catholic educational institution in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It was established in 896 by French missionaries, with Rev Christophe-Etienne Bonjean playing a leading role. The college has over 4500 students with a staff of over 400. Distinguished former students include Cardinal Thomas Cooray the first Cardinal from Sri Lanka, and President Ranasinghe Premadasa. The motto of the college is "In Scientia et Virtute", meaning "In Knowledge and Virtue" in Latin.

                                                          

                                                   Showing part of front view of the college.

                                                     Showing the Chapel of St. Joseph’s College.  

                                                                            

                                                                       Logo of the College

St. Joseph's College is a Catholic educational institution in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It was established in 1896 by French missionaries, with Rev Christophe-Etienne Bonjean playing a leading role. The college has over 4500 students with a staff of over 400. Distinguished former students include Cardinal Thomas Cooray the first Cardinal from Sri Lanka, and President Ranasinghe Premadasa. The motto of the college is "In Scientia et Virtute", meaning "In Knowledge and Virtue" in Latin.

Religious affiliation(s): Roman Catholic

Established: 2 March 1896

Present Rector: Rev. Fr. Travis Gabriel

Staff:450

Grades: 1 to 13 Local Syllabus & London A/L's

Gender: Boys

Age:5 to 19

Color(s): Blue & White

        

Why are Ships called She?

 "A ship is called a she because there is always a great deal of bustle around her; there is usually a gang of men about; she has a waist and stays; it takes a lot of paint to keep her good-looking; it is not the initial expense that breaks you, it is the upkeep; she can be all decked out; it takes an experienced man to handle her correctly; and without a man at the helm, she is absolutely uncontrollable. She shows her topsides, hides her bottom and, when coming into port, always heads for the buoys.”

 But seriously: why are ships and countries (and sometimes cars and other vessels and vehicles) often referred to with the feminine pronoun? Although the practice has been in steady decline for some time now, thanks no doubt to feminism and PC journalistic style guides it’s nevertheless been historically ingrained in nautical language and lore for many centuries. One prosaic explanation is that the gender of the Latin word for “ship” — Navis — is feminine. But people generally agree on the more romantic notion of the ‘ship as a she’ phenomenon: that it stems from the tradition of boat-owners, typically and historically male, naming their vessels after significant women in their lives — wives, sweethearts, mothers.

Similarly, and more broadly, ships were once dedicated to goddesses, and later also to mortal women of national or historic significance, thereby bestowing a benevolent feminine spirit on the vessels that would carry seafarers across treacherous oceans. Figureheads on the prows of ships were often depictions of such female namesakes, denoting the name of the ship for a largely illiterate maritime population. This practice dated from the early 18th century, before which superstition had it that the presence of women aboard sailing vessels — whether in human or representative form — was an omen of bad luck.

The practice of naming boats and ships after women continues today, although certainly not exclusively, as does the habit of feminizing our sailing vessels.

My Old Home Town - and little bit of its history

Galle is a major city in Sri Lanka, situated on the southwestern tip, 119 km from Colombo. It is the administrative capital of Southern Province, Sri Lanka and is the district capital of Galle District. Galle is the fifth largest city in Sri Lanka after the capital Colombo, Kandy, Jaffna and Negombo.

Galle was known as Gimhathiththa (although Ibn Batuta in the 14th century refers to it as Qali)before the arrival of the Portuguese  in the 16th century, when it was the main port on the island. Galle reached the height of its development in the 18th century, during the Dutch colonial period. Galle is the best example of a fortified city built by the Portuguese in South and Southeast Asia, showing the interaction between Portuguese architectural styles and native traditions. The city was extensively fortified by the Dutch during the 17th century from 1649 onwards. The Galle fort is a world heritage site and is the largest remaining fortress in Asia built by European occupiers.

Other prominent landmarks in Galle include the city's natural harbor, the National Maritime Museum, St. Mary's Cathedral founded by Jesuit priests, one of the main Shiva temples on the island, and Amangalla the historic luxury hotel. On 26 December 2004 the city was devastated by the massive Tsunami. Thousands were killed in the city alone. Galle is home to a cricket ground, the Galle  International Stadium which is considered to be one of the most picturesque cricket grounds in the world. The ground which was severely damaged by the tsunami, was rebuilt and test matches resumed there on December 18, 2007.

Important natural geographical features in Galle include Rumassala in Unawatuna, a large mound-like hill, which forms the eastern protective barrier to the Galle harbour. Local tradition associates this hill with some events of Ramayana, one of the great Hindu epics. The major river in the area is the Gin River (Gin Ganga), which begins from Gongala Kanda and passes villages such as Neluwa, Nagoda, Baddegama, Thelikada and Wakwella, reaches the sea at Ginthota. The river is bridged at Wakwella by the Wakwella Bridge.

Western side of Galle Harbor and Galle Fort.

Clock tower in Galle Fort

                                                                  

                                   

                                   

National Maritime Museum 

Our house was in Richmond Hill and was very close to Richmond College.  At that time, about 90% of the families who lived in Richmond Hill were Sinhala, Buddhists. Christians were the minority but we all lived in harmony as one family.

My parents made early plans about my education. When I was about four years old, they discussed with the Parish priest of the Kalegana church (our local parish) who opened a Montessori school for little ones in the area and very specially for me. Eventually I first attended the Montessori school in Kalegana, Galle

My family left Richmond Hill and moved to Colombo in 1961.

Richmond Hill Railway Station

Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, at Galle,

Ceylon (1868)

The Richmond Hill railway station is the first railway station in Sri Lanka built and named after a school. The Richmond Hill Station is located on the Coastal line between the Piyadigama railway station and Galle Railway Station. It was constructed during the early 1900s for the benefit of children who attend the many schools around the area. The station is located at the base of the hill approximately 200 m (660 ft) from the Richmond Hill Road.

Tsunami - part 2 (SFGD)

Generation mechanisms

The principal generation mechanism (or cause) of a tsunami is the displacement of a substantial volume of water or perturbation of the sea. This displacement of water is usually attributed to either earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, glacier calvings or more rarely by meteorites and nuclear tests. The waves formed in this way are then sustained by gravity. Tides do not play any part in the generation of tsunamis.

Seismicity

Tsunami can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water. Tectonic earthquakes are a particular kind of earthquake that are associated with the Earth's crustal deformation; when these earthquakes occur beneath the sea, the water above the deformed area is displaced from its equilibrium position. More specifically, a tsunami can be generated when thrust faults associated with convergent or destructive plate boundaries move abruptly, resulting in water displacement, owing to the vertical component of movement involved. Movement on normal (extensional) faults can also cause displacement of the seabed, but only the largest of such events (typically related to flexure in the outer trench swell) cause enough displacement to give rise to a significant tsunami.

Drawing of tectonic plate boundary before earthquake:

 Generation mechanisms

                                       
The energy released produces tsunami waves.

Tsunami

Tsunami is originally from Japanese language meaning: "harbor wave". It is also known as a seismic sea wave, is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater   explosions including detonations of underwater nuclear devices, landslides, glacier calvings, meteorite impacts and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami. Unlike normal ocean waves which are generated by wind or tides, which are generated by the gravitational pull of the Moon and Sun, a tsunami is generated by the displacement of water.


Tsunami waves do not resemble normal sea waves, because their wavelength is far longer. Rather than appearing as a breaking wave, a tsunami may instead initially resemble a rapidly rising tide, and for this reason they are sometimes referred to as tidal waves, although this usage is not favored by the scientific community because tsunamis are not tidal in nature. Tsunamis generally consist of a series of waves with periods ranging from minutes to hours, arriving in a so-called "wave train". Wave heights of tens of meters can be generated by large events. Although the impact of tsunamis is limited to coastal areas, their destructive power can be enormous and they can affect entire ocean basins; the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was among the deadliest natural disasters in human history with at least 230,000 people killed or missing in 14 countries bordering the Indian Ocean.

Deepest Part of the Worlds's Oceans

The Mariana Trench or Marianas Trench is the deepest part of the world's oceans. It is located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of the Mariana Island. The trench is about 2,550 kilometres (1,580 mi) long but has an average width of only 69 kilometres (43 mi). It reaches a maximum-known depth of 10,994 m (± 40 m) or 6.831 mi (36,070 ± 131 ft) at the Challenger Deep, a small slot-shaped valley in its floor, at its southern end, although some unrepeated measurements place the deepest portion at 11.03 kilometres (6.85 mi).

At the bottom of the trench the water column above exerts a pressure of 1,086 bars (15,750 psi), over 1000 times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. At this pressure, the density of water is increased by 4.96%, making 95 litres of water under the pressure of the Challenger Deep contain the same mass as 100 litres at the surface. The temperature at the bottom is 1 to 4 °C.

The trench is not the part of the seafloor closest to the center of the Earth. This is because the Earth is not a perfect sphere; its radius is about 25 kilometres (16 mi) less at the poles than at the equator.As a result, parts of the Arctic Ocean seabed are at least 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) closer to the Earth's center than the Challenger Deep seafloor.

Coriolis Force in relation to the movement of Topical Revolving Storms

 

An effect whereby a mass moving in a rotating system experiences a force (the Coriolis force) acting perpendicular to the direction of motion and to the axis of rotation. On the earth, the effect tends to deflect moving objects to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern and is important in the formation of cyclonic weather systems.

Tropical Revolving Storms

What they are?

A tropical storm is an intense low pressure weather system, that can last for days to weeks within the Tropical regions of our planet.  They are tropical revolving storms because they are spun on their journey by the Coriolis force of the Earth’s spin.    The Earth is 40,000 kilometers (24,900 miles) around at its widest part, the equator. Because it spins on its axis once in 24 hours, a point on the Earth's equator is traveling about 1,700 km per hour (1,000 miles per hour) relative to its axis. But the closer you get to the poles, the smaller the track a point takes in its daily rotation. At 60° North or South latitude, the track is only half the distance that it is at the equator, and so a point travels only half as fast. Air (or water) moving from high latitudes to low then tends to lag, and a person on the surface would feel a wind blowing out of the east. On the other hand, air moving from low latitudes to high is deflected westwards. This also means that moving air or water is deflected to the right in the northern hemisphere, and to the left in the southern hemisphere.  It is this deflection that causes tropical storms to rotate.
 

Where they occur:

Tropical storms are known by many names, including hurricanes (North America), cyclones (India) and typhoons (Japan and East Asia).   They all occur in a band that lies roughly between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and despite varying wind speeds are ferocious storms. Some storms can form just outside of the tropics, but in general the distribution (location) of these storms is controlled by the places where sea temperatures rise above 27°C and is heated to a sufficient depth.

The highest number of storms does not occur in the Atlantic close to the USA, but in the North Pacific affecting countries such as the Philippines and Japan. This is despite the fact that in the UK we only really get to hear about tropical storms affecting the USA. The most affected area being South East Asia receives an average of 26 storms per year. The least affected area is India where there is an average of 2 tropical storms per year.

Tropical Storm - Eye

 

The Saffir-Simpson Scale:

Tropical storms are defined by their wind speeds and the potential damage they can cause, using what is known as the Saffir Simpson scale. Many tropical storms form between the tropics, some develop into tropical depressions but not many actually develop into full blown hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons.  As the sea temperature increases uplift of air increases and pressure decreases.  The Saffir Simpson also accounts for the height of the storm surge, the huge waves of water that are whipped up by the storms.
 

The Saffir-Simpson scale for Hurricane Classification

Wind speeds are used to decide what category of storm a tropical storm is, over 120Kph or 74 mile per hour is needed for a category 1 hurricane, Over 250Kph or 149 miles per hour is the worst hurricane, a category 5 which would cause extreme damage.  Watch  an animation of the Saffir-Simpson scale in action.

How Tropical storms form:

Tropical storms form whenever sea temperatures rise above 27 °C and can be up to 650km across. They occur where the trade winds converge and often when the ITCZ has migrated to its most Northerly extent allowing air to converge or come together at low levels.   The suns heat passes through our atmosphere and warms the ocean water throughout the summer.  The sea is constantly moving and heat is redistributed to deeper parts of the ocean so this takes quite some time (this is why hurricanes occur in late summer - when sea temperature is at its highest).

This causes the seas temperature to rise to 27°C and above, which encourages evaporation and the rising of air and water vapor up through the atmosphere in thermals. As these thermals rise the temperature drops (at 9.7°C per 1000m ascent or the DALR).  Progressively the relative humidity rises as the air ascends (as cooler air can hold less water vapour than warmer air), eventually this causes the water vapour to condense into tiny droplets around dust and pollen (condensation nuclei).  These droplets collide together to form bigger droplets and thus helps to form huge cumulonimbus clouds. Latent heat is released during condensation fueling the storm further. Eventually these droplets will collide and coalesce with one another, become bigger and fall as rain. As a result of condensation, latent heat is released and the air cools at a slower rate, the SALR, this fuels the storm further.

Because the air has risen in the center of this storm, an area of low atmospheric pressure exists at the surface.  The Earth's atmosphere acts to balance this out as air rushes from surrounding high pressure areas to the centre of the storm along the pressure gradient.  This creates the high winds in the storm, and the lower the pressure gets in the centre of the storm relative to the pressure surrounding the storm, the stronger the winds will become as the pressure gradient steepens.

The whole storm slowly migrates across oceans towards land, and because of the Earth’s rotation or spin (known as the Coriolis force or effect (click here to see an animation)), the whole storm starts to spiral around a central more calm point, known as the eye. The pressures and weather are more stable in the eye, as the updrafts of air are balanced by descending cooled air.

As tropical storms pass over land they lose their source of energy, and the die out.

Drakes Voyage to Coast of California: Nova Albion (1579)

The journey of Francis Drake up the Pacific Coast in 1579, artist's impression.

After looting the Cacafuego, Drake turned north, hoping to meet another Spanish treasure ship coming south on its return from Manila to Acapulco. Although he failed to find a treasure ship, Drake reputedly sailed as far north as the 38th parallel, landing on the coast of California on 17 June 1579. He found a good port, landed, repaired and restocked his vessels, then stayed for a time, keeping friendly relations with the Coast Miwok natives. He claimed the land in the name of the Holy Trinity for the English Crown, called Nova Albion—Latin for "New Britain". Assertions that he left some of his men behind as an embryo "colony" are founded on the reduced number who were with him in the Moluccas.

Drake's landing in California, engraving published 1590 by Theodor de Bry.

The precise location of the port was carefully guarded to keep it secret from the Spaniards, and several of Drake's maps may have been altered to this end. All first-hand records from the voyage, including logs, paintings and charts, were lost when Whitehall Palace burned in 1698. A bronze plaque inscribed with Drake's claim to the new lands – Drake's Plate of Brass – fitting the description in his account, was discovered in Marin County, California but was later declared a hoax. Now a National Historic Landmark, the officially recognized location of Drake's New Albion is Drakes Bay, California.

Ancient Navigators: Sir Francis Drake

Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the second circumnavigation of the world, from 1577 to 1580.

At age 23, Drake made his first voyage to the New World, sailing with his second cousin, Sir John Hawkins, on one of a fleet of ships owned by his relatives, the Hawkins family of Plymouth. In 1568 Drake was again with the Hawkins fleet when it was trapped by the Spaniards in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulúa. He escaped along with Hawkins.

Following the defeat at San Juan de Ulúa, Drake vowed revenge. He made two voyages to the West Indies, in 1570 and 1571, of which little is known.

In 1572, he embarked on his first major independent enterprise. He planned an attack on the Isthmus of Panama, known to the Spanish as Tierra Firme and the English as the Spanish Main. This was the point at which the silver and gold treasure of Peru had to be landed and sent overland to the Caribbean Sea, where galleons from Spain would pick it up at the town of Nombre de Dios. Drake left Plymouth on 24 May 1572, with a crew of 73 men in two small vessels, the Pascha (70 tons) and the Swan (25 tons), to capture Nombre de Dios.

His first raid was late in July 1572. Drake and his men captured the town and its treasure. When his men noticed that Drake was bleeding profusely from a wound, they insisted on withdrawing to save his life and left the treasure. Drake stayed in the area for almost a year, raiding Spanish shipping and attempting to capture a treasure shipment.

In 1573, he joined Guillaume Le Testu, a French buccaneer, in an attack on a richly laden mule train. Drake and his party found that they had captured around 20 tons of silver and gold. They buried much of the treasure, as it was too much for their party to carry. (An account of this may have given rise to subsequent stories of pirates and buried treasure.) Wounded, Le Testu was captured and later beheaded. The small band of adventurers dragged as much gold and silver as they could carry back across some 18 miles of jungle-covered mountains to where they had left the raiding boats. When they got to the coast, the boats were gone. Drake and his men, downhearted, exhausted and hungry, had nowhere to go and the Spanish were not far behind.

At this point Drake rallied his men, buried the treasure on the beach, and built a raft to sail with two volunteers ten miles along the surf-lashed coast to where they had left the flagship. When Drake finally reached its deck, his men were alarmed at his bedraggled appearance. Fearing the worst, they asked him how the raid had gone. Drake could not resist a joke and teased them by looking downhearted. Then he laughed, pulled a necklace of Spanish gold from around his neck and said "Our voyage is made, lads!" By 9 August 1573, he had returned to Plymouth

Pirate Captain Kidd's 'treasure' found in Madagascar

The bar is said to be from the wreckage of Capt Kidd's ship, the Adventure Galley 

Underwater explorers in Madagascar say they have discovered treasure belonging to the notorious 17th-Century Scottish pirate William Kidd.

A 50kg (7st 9lb) silver bar was brought to shore on Thursday on the island of Sainte Marie, from what is thought to be the wreck of the Adventure Galley.

The bar was presented to Madagascar's president at a special ceremony.

US explorer Barry Clifford says he believes there are many more such bars still in the wreck.

Capt Kidd was first appointed by the British authorities to tackle piracy but later became a ruthless criminal and was executed in 1701.
'Scepticism'

"Captain's Kidd's treasure is the stuff of legends. People have been looking for it for 300 years. To literally have it hit me on the head - I thought what the heck just happened to me. I really didn't expect this," Mr Clifford said.

"There's more down there. I know the whole bottom of the cavity where I found the silver bar is filled with metal. It's too murky down there to see what metal, but my metal detector tells me there is metal on all sides."

The BBC's Martin Vogl tweets that there is much excitement in Madagascar about the discovery and Mr Clifford's team has no doubt that the discovery is genuine.

Barry Clifford led a team which discovered the suspected treasure

The team believes the bar, marked with what appears to be a letter S and a letter T, has its origins in 17th-Century Bolivia.

It believes the ship it has found was built in England, however there is bound to be scepticism and calls for more proof that the bar was linked to Capt Kidd, our reporter says.

One option would be to take samples of wood from the ship to analyse, he says.

The location of the ship, thought to have sunk in 1698, has been known about for many years but the silver bar was only discovered earlier this week.

Mr Clifford said that while diving in the wreck, his metal detector picked up signals but it was too muddy for him to see anything.

UK ambassador to Madagascar Timothy Smart, who attended the ceremony, said he hoped that Mr Clifford's latest discovery would raise Madagascar's profile as a tourist destination.

The plan is to exhibit the bars in a museum.

Reposted From BBC.com

Francisco de Orellana and the Amazon River

Route of first voyage (1541-1542)

If anything good can be said to have come of the El Dorado myth, it is that it caused the interior of South America to be explored and mapped.  The best example is Francisco de Orellana, who was part of a 1542 expedition led by Gonzalo Pizarro. The expedition became divided, and while Pizarro went back to Quito, Orellana eventually discovered the Amazon River and followed it to the Atlantic Ocean.

Exploration of the Amazon River

Shipwrights from Francisco de Orellana's expedition building a small brigantine, the San Pedro

Gonzalo Pizarro set off in 1541 to explore east of Quito into the South American interior in search of El Dorado, the "city of gold" and La Canela, the "valley of cinnamon". He was accompanied by his second-in-command Francisco de Orellana. After 170 km, the Coca River joined the Napo River (at a point now known as Puerto Francisco de Orellana); the party stopped for a few weeks to build a boat just upriver from this confluence. They continued downriver through an uninhabited area, where they could not find food. Orellana offered and was ordered to follow the Napo River, then known as Río de la Canela ("Cinnamon River") and return with food for the party. Based on intelligence received from a captive native chief named Delicola, they expected to find food within a few days downriver by ascending another river to the north.

The Amazon originates from the Apacheta cliff in Arequipa at the Nevado Mismi, marked only by a wooden cross.

Orellana took about 57 men, the boat, and some canoes and left Pizarro's party on December 26, 1541. However, Orellana apparently missed the confluence (probably with the Aguarico) where he was to look for food. By the time he and his men reached another village many of them were sick from hunger and eating "noxious plants", and near death. Seven men died at that village. His men threatened to mutiny if he followed his orders and the expedition turned back to join Pizarro's larger party. He accepted to change the purpose of the expedition to discover new lands in the name of the King of Spain, and the men built a larger boat in which to navigate downstream. After a journey of 600 km down the Napo River they reached a further major confluence, at a point near modern Iquitos, and then followed the upper Amazon, now known as the Solimões, for a further 1,200 km to its confluence with the Rio Negro (near modern Manaus), which they reached on 3 June 1542.

On the Nhamunda River, a tributary of the Amazon downstream from Manaus, Orellana's party had a fierce battle with warriors who, they reported, were led by fierce female warriors who beat the men to death with clubs if they tried to retreat. Orellana's men began referring to the women as Amazons, a reference to the women of Greek Mythology. The river was initially known as the Marañón (the name by which the Peruvian part of the river is still known today) or Rio de Orellana. It later became known as the Rio Amazonas, the name by which it is still known in both Spanish and Portuguese.

The icamiabas Indians dominated the area close to the Amazon river. When Orellana went down the river in search of gold, descending from the Andes (in 1541), the river was still called Rio Grande, Mar Dulce or Rio de Canela (Cinnamon), because cinnamon trees were once thought to be located there. The story of the fierce ambush launched by the icamiabas that nearly destroyed the Spanish expedition was narrated to the king, Charles I, who, inspired by the Greek legend of the Amazons, named the river the Amazon.

In one of the most improbably successful voyages in known history, Orellana managed to sail the length of the Amazon, arriving at the river's mouth on 24 August 1542. He and his party sailed along the Atlantic coast until reaching Cubagua Island, near the coast of Venezuela.

The BBC documentary Unnatural Histories presents evidence that Orellana, rather than exaggerating his claims as previously thought, was correct in his observations that an advanced civilization was flourishing along the Amazon in the 1540s. It is believed that the civilization was later devastated by the spread of diseases from Europe, such as smallpox. The evidence to support this claim comes from the discovery of numerous geoglyphs dating from between 0 and 1250 AD and terra preta. Some 8 million people may have lived in the Amazon region in 1500, divided between dense coastal settlements, such as that at Marajó, and inland dwellers. By 1900 the population had fallen to 1 million and by the early 1980s it was less than 200,000

Geoglyphs on deforested land in the Amazon rainforest.

Ancient Explorations: The Search for El Dorado

Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro conquering the Aztec and Inca empires

Gonzalo Pizarro

After the conquest of the Incas, Francisco Pizarro named his brother Gonzalo as governor of the entire province of Quito. Gonzalo's assignment was to use Quito as a base to look for El Dorado. Adventurers and conquistadors from all over Europe flocked to the New World, hoping to be part of the next expedition that would find, conquer and plunder a rich American empire. These men followed rumors of gold all across the unexplored interior of South America, many of them dying in the process.

1. There was a grain of truth in the El Dorado myth

The Muisca people of Cundinamarca (present-day Colombia) had a tradition: kings would coat themselves in a sticky sap before covering themselves in gold powder. The king would then take a canoe to the center of Lake Guatavitá and, before the eyes of thousands of his subjects watching from shore, would leap into the lake, emerging clean. Then, a great festival would begin. This tradition had been neglected by the Muisca by the time of their discovery by the Spanish in 1537, but not before word of it had reached the greedy ears of the European intruders in cities all over the continent. "El Dorado," in fact, is Spanish for "the gilded one:" the term at first referred to an individual, the king who covered himself in gold. According to some sources, the man who coined this phrase was conquistador Sebastián de Benalcázar.

The scene depicted in this ancient artwork, on display at the Gold Museum in Bogota, Colombia, shows the origin of the El Dorado myth. Legend tells of a Muisca king who would cover himself in gold dust during festivals, then dive from a raft into Lake Guatavita.

Portraits of rulers of Muisca

2. El Dorado was discovered in 1537

The earliest reference to the name El Dorado was in 1535 or 1536, before Spanish contact with the Muisca people. The Muisca people were discovered in 1537 by Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada: they were swiftly conquered and their cities looted. The Spanish knew the El Dorado legend and dredged Lake Guatavitá: they found some gold, but not very much, and the greedy conquistadors refused to believe that such a disappointing haul could be the "real" El Dorado. They therefore kept searching for it in vain for decades.


3.  It Didn’t Exist After 1537

For the next two centuries, thousands of men would scour South America in search of El Dorado, or any other wealthy native empire like the Inca. Somewhere along the line, El Dorado stopped being an individual and began being a fabulous city of gold. Today we know that there were no more great civilizations to be found: the Inca were, by far, the most advanced and wealthy civilization anywhere in South America. The seekers of El Dorado found some gold here and there, but their quest to find the lost city of gold was doomed from the start.

4.  Several Germans Searched for El Dorado

Spain claimed most of South America and most of the seekers of El Dorado were Spanish, but there were some exceptions. Spain ceded part of Venezuela to the German Welser banking family in 1528, and some Germans who came to rule this land spent time searching for El Dorado. Notable among them were Ambrosius Ehinger, Georg Hohemut, Nicolaus Federmann and Phillipp von Hutten.

The English adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh leads a raid on the island of Trinidad

5.  Sir Walter Raleigh Looked for El Dorado

English courtier Sir Walter Raleigh made two trips to Guiana to search for El Dorado. During his second trip in 1617, he sent his son, Watt Raleigh, with an expedition up the Orinoco River. But Walter Raleigh, then an old man, stayed behind at a base camp on the island of Trinidad. The expedition was a disaster, and Watt Raleigh was killed in a battle with Spaniards. Eric Klingelhofer, an archaeologist at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, says Walter Raleigh was furious at the survivor who informed him of Watt's death and accused the survivor of letting his son be killed. "The man goes into his cabin on the ship and kills himself," says Klingelhofer, who is trying to find the site of Raleigh's base camp on Trinidad.

Raleigh returned to England, where King James ordered him beheaded for, among other things, disobeying orders to avoid conflict with the Spanish.

6.  It kept Moving Around

The place where El Dorado was “supposed” to be kept changing, as one expedition after another failed to find it. At first, it was supposed to be in the north, somewhere in the Andean highlands. Then, once that area had been explored, it was believed to be in the foothills of the Andes to the east. Several expeditions failed to find it there. When searches of the Orinoco basin and Venezuelan plains failed to turn it up, the explorers thought it had to be in the mountains of Guyana. It even appeared in Guyana on maps printed in Europe.

7.  Lope de Aguirre was the Madman of El Dorado

Lope de Aguirre was unstable: everyone agreed on that. The man had once tracked down a judge that had ordered him whipped for abusing native workers: it took Aguirre three years to find him and kill him. Inexplicably, Pedro de Ursua selected Aguirre to accompany his 1559 expedition to find El Dorado. Once they were deep in the jungle, Aguirre took over the expedition, ordered the murder of dozens of his companions (including Pedro de Ursúa), declared himself and his men independent from Spain and began attacking Spanish settlements. "The Madman of El Dorado" was eventually killed by the Spanish.

8.  It led to Much Abuse of the Native Population

Not much good came of the El Dorado myth. The expeditions were full of desperate, ruthless men who only wanted gold: they often attacked native populations, stealing their food, using the men as porters and torturing elders to get them to reveal where their gold was (whether they had any or not). The natives soon learned that the best way to get rid of these monsters was to tell them what they wanted to hear: El Dorado, they said, was just a little bit further away, just keep going that way and you’re sure to find it. The natives in the interior of South America soon hated the Spanish with a passion, enough so that when Sir Walter Raleigh explored the region, all he had to do was announce that he was an enemy of the Spanish and he quickly found the natives willing to help him however they could.

9.  It led to Much Exploration

If anything good can be said to have come of the El Dorado myth, it is that it caused the interior of South America to be explored and mapped. The German explorers scoured the area of present-day Venezuela and even the psychotic Aguirre blazed a trail across the continent. The best example is Francisco de Orellana, who was part of a 1542 expedition led by Gonzalo Pizarro. The expedition became divided, and while Pizarro went back to Quito, Orellana eventually discovered the Amazon River and followed it to the Atlantic Ocean.

10.  It Lives On

Although no one is still looking for the fabled lost city, El Dorado has left its mark on popular culture. Many songs, books, movies and poems (including one by Edgar Allen Poe) have been produced about the lost city, and someone said to be "looking for El Dorado" is on a hopeless quest.

Reposted from Latin American History

Journal of Christopher Columbus: Cuba

 

Columbus Cuba.—The following is the narrative of the explorer's visit to Cuba during his first voyage (1492) from his Journal. The Journal was forwarded to the King and Queen, but is now lost. In his Life of Columbus, Ferdinand Columbus drew largely from the Journal, and in the subjoined abstract we have parts of the Journal word for word, with many quotations by another chronicler concerning what Columbus did and said:

christopher columbus in cuba

Sunday, Oct. 28—" I went thence in search of the island of Cuba on a south-southwest coast, making for the nearest point of it, and entered a very beautiful river without danger of sunken rocks or other impediments. All the coast was clear of dangers up to the shore. The mouth of the river was 12 brazos across, and it is wide enough for a vessel to beat in. I anchored about a lombard-shot inside." The Admiral says that " he never beheld such a beautiful place, with trees bordering the river, handsome, green, and different from ours, having fruits and flowers each one according to its nature. There are many birds, which sing very sweetly. There are a great number of palm-trees of a different kind from those in Guinea and from ours, of a middling height, the trunks without that covering, and the leaves very large, with which they thatch their houses. The country is very level." The Admiral jumped into his boat and went on shore. He came to two houses, which he believed to belong to fishermen who had fled from fear. In one of them he found a kind of dog that never barks, and in both there were nets of palm-fibre and cordage, as well as horn fish-hooks, bone harpoons, and other apparatus " for fishing, and several hearths. He believed that many people lived together in one house. He gave orders that nothing in the houses should be touched, and so it was done." The herbage was as thick as in Andalusia during April and May. He found much purslane and wild amaranth. He returned to the boat and went up the river for some distance, and he says it was great pleasure to see the bright verdure, and the birds, which he could not leave to go back. He says that this island is the most beautiful that eyes have seen, full of good harbors and deep rivers, and the sea appeared as if it never rose; for the herbage on the beach nearly reached the waves, which does not happen where the sea is rough. He says that the island is full of very beautiful mountains, although they are not very extensive as regards length, but high; and all the country is high like Sicily. It is abundantly supplied with water, as they gathered from the Indians they had taken with them from the island of Guanahani. These said by signs that there are ten great rivers, and that they cannot go round the island in twenty days. When they came near land with the ships, two canoes came out; and, when they saw the sailors get into a boat and row about to find the depth of the river where they could anchor, the canoes fled. The Indians say that in this island there are gold-mines and pearls, and the Admiral saw a likely place for them and mussel-shells, which are signs of them. He understood that large ships of the Gran Can came here, and that from here to the mainland was a voyage of ten days. The Admiral called this river and harbor San Salvador.

Reposted From Son of the South

74 Interesting Facts About Christopher Columbus

12 October 1492 – Christopher Columbus discovers The Americas for Spain, painting by John Vanderlyn.

1. Christopher Columbus (c. 1450-51–May 20, 1506) was born in the Republic of Genoa, Italy, although the exact location of his birth is not known with certainty. His father was a wool weaver who also owned a cheese stand.^b
2. Columbus’ mother was Susanna Fontanarossa, the daughter of a wool merchant. He had three brothers: Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo. He also had a sister, Bianchinetta. Columbus was the eldest.^b
3. Christopher Columbus’ family was a member of a very small and lucky group during the Middle Ages: the middle class. Most people were extremely poor (the peasants). A few were very rich (the nobility).^b
4. When Columbus was 14, he left school and his father’s wool workshop to apprentice himself to a merchant on a trading ship.^a
5. When he was only 19, in 1470, Columbus took his first long voyage on one of his employer’s ships to the island of Chios in the Aegean Sea. It was probably on this trip and a second trip to Chios in 1475 that he learned how to navigate and steer a ship on open water on a long voyage.^a





Converting native peoples to Catholicism was a method of control



6. Columbus spoke frequently about his desire to spread Christianity to heathen cultures, and it was a popular cause during the time. However, converting people also meant European governments could control them.^a
7. As a young man, Columbus was tall, well above the 5′ 7″ that was average for men in the Middle Ages. He had pale skin that burned easily in the sun. He had a hooked nose, pale blue eyes, and red-blond hair that turned completely white by the time he was in his 30s.^f


8. Columbus operated a little mapmaking and bookselling shop with his brother Bartolomeo while he lived in Portugal.b
   
   

   

   "Columbus map", drawn ca. 1490 in the Lisbon workshop of Bartolomeo and Christopher Columbus



9. During Columbus’ time, most people believed that the world was formed mainly of one giant landmass consisting of Europe, Asia, and Africa—mainly because these are the only continents mentioned in the Bible. These were surrounded by one enormous body of water they called the Ocean Sea.^a
10. Some scholars speculate that Columbus may have received secret information from a close friend about lands far west across the ocean. This sailor is sometimes called the “Unknown Pilot.” Present historians haven’t found any evidence of him except for what is written by some early Columbus biographers.^a
11. Columbus had two sons by two different women. Diego Columbus (1480–1526) and Fernando (1488–1539).^b
12. Columbus disrupted the entire economy of three continents. Post-Columbian diseases killed 3–5 million people during the subsequent 50 years after his arrival in the New World. Additionally, African slaves became a dominant commodity.^b
13. Columbus first landed near the coast of what is today known as Watling Island in the Bahamas. Although he thought he was near China, Japan, and India, he was actually more than 8,000 miles away.^b
14. Columbus first landed in the Bahamas. All the Caribbean islands—including the Bahamas, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba—were settled by a group of peaceful people called the Tainos.^b





Columbus believed that he had reached the Indies



15. When Columbus landed in the New World, he believed that he had reached the Indies; thus, he thought, the people he met were Indians. Even though more than 500 years have passed since that voyage, the native people of the Americas are still often referred to as “Indians.”^a
16. Before Columbus was a famous admiral and governor of the New World, he was a pirate, or Privateer, who helped attack Moorish merchant trips.^b
17. Columbus was very religious and believed God had called him to make his voyages. Many of the names Columbus gave to the lands he discovered were religious names.^b
18. Later in his life, for reasons unknown, Columbus wore a plain Franciscan habit everywhere he went.^b
19. Near the end of his life, Columbus wrote a book called Book of Privileges that listed all the promises the Spanish crown had made to him over the years and the ways the crown had not honored these promises.^b
20. Later in his life, Columbus began to write a bizarre book titled Book of Prophecies. In this book, he insisted that all his voyages had been divine missions directed by God. He believed the world was coming to an end and that he, Columbus, was bringing it about.^b
21. During his fourth voyage, Columbus was in intense pain. His eyes bled regularly, which left him blind for long periods of time. He could barely sit or stand due to the pain in his joints. Many historians believe he was suffering from Reiter’s Syndrome, which causes diarrhea and inflammation in the joints, eyes, and bladder.^b
22. Before he died, Columbus began requesting a new sort of voyage: a Christian crusade to Jerusalem to rescue it from the Muslims.^b
23. On May 20, 1506, at the age of 55, Columbus died at the court in Valladolid, Spain. His death went mostly unnoticed. In fact, the official court registry did not even record his passing until 10 days later. However, in the years and decades after his death, much of his fame and glory were returned to him.^b
24. Columbus is often referred to as the “Father of the New World.”^a
Columbus was not the first European to reach the New World
25. Columbus was not the first European to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Some 500 years earlier, Norse Viking Leif Eriksson is believed to have landed in present-day Newfoundland, around A.D. 1000. Some historians believe that Ireland’s Saint Bernard or other Celtic people crossed the Atlantic even before Eriksson.^d
26. When Columbus saw the Orinoco River empty into the Atlantic off of northern South America during his third voyage, he thought he had found the Garden of Eden.^a
27. Columbus is considered one of the best “dead reckoning” sailors who ever walked the planet.^a
28. Skeletal evidence suggests Columbus and his crew brought back syphilis to the Old World. As one of the first global diseases, it devastated Europe.^b
29. Columbus was inspired by a letter by Italian scholar Paolo Toscanelli to find Asia through a western sea. He believed sailing west would be a faster way of getting to India.^b
30. Columbus was a talented admiral, but he was also a slave trader. While he soon discovered that the new lands did not hold silver, pearls, and other treasures, they did hold people, whom Columbus viewed as valuable resources. He is believed to have instigated the slave trade.^b
31. When Columbus returned to Spain with natives, Queen Isabella believed they were her subjects and, therefore, could not be enslaved unless they refused to be converted. However, during the Colonial era, the Spaniards enslaved them all the time.^b
32. Until the day he died, Columbus did not believe he found a new world. He died believing he had found a new passage to India. To justify his position, he proposed that the Earth was actually shaped like a pear, which made him the laughingstock of Europe.^b
33. Many countries in Europe and in the New World celebrate Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492. In the United States, October 12 is called Columbus Day; in Latin America, it is Dia de la Raza (Day of the Race), in the Bahamas, it is Discovery Day; in Argentina, it is Dia del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity); and in Belize and Uruguay, it is Dia de las Americas (Day of the Americas).^a
34. Though Columbus Day had been celebrated unofficially since Colonial days, it became an official holiday first in Colorado in 1906 and a federal holiday in 1937. In 1970, the holiday was moved to the second Monday of October.^b
35. Columbus has been viewed as an intrepid explorer, a monster, and a slave trader who unleashed horrors and conquest upon unsuspecting natives. However, scholars note he had both admirable qualities and negative ones: he was brave but a very flawed human being.^a
36. In Berkeley, California, Columbus Day was replaced with Indigenous People’s Day in 1992.^b
37. Activists have sought to abolish Columbus Day since at least the 19th century because of its association with immigrants and with the Knights of Columbus. Additionally, some were afraid it was being used to expand Catholic influence.^a
38. Christopher Columbus did not discover America. Humans had lived in the Americas for at least 20,000 years. By the time Columbus arrived, the Americas were already populated by several empires and hundreds of small nations.^a
Horses were one of the first European exports to the Americas
39. Christopher Columbus introduced horses into the New World. They later spread to the mainland and became essential to the Plains Indians.^a
40. After the destruction of the La Navidad garrison, Columbus created a new colony named Isabella (after the queen) 75 miles away. Over the next three years, it would be the center of the most horrific destruction and bloodshed the land had ever seen.^f
41. Columbus and his men destroyed the island’s natural, delicate ecosystem. His ships brought sugar cane, wheat, olives, oranges, lemons, pomegranates, dates, cucumbers, lettuce, melons, and grapes. These new species grew and spread, overwhelming the native plants that had lived on the continent for hundreds of thousands of years.^a
42. The Europeans and the native Tainos traded two things that would shape cultures for the remainder of history: tobacco and horses. Sailors brought back tobacco to Europe, and the first European nicotine addicts were soon created.^f
43. Columbus was intensely interested in gold, so he imposed a gold tribute system. Every Tainos adult would supply a certain quota of gold dust on a regular schedule. If they did, they were given a token to wear around their necks. If they did not, they had a hand chopped off.^a
44. Because Columbus destroyed the native population of Haiti (the Taino Indians), he began shipping African slaves to the island. This move has had consequences reaching into modern day.^b
45. The Taino population was completely extinct within 50 years of the Europeans’ first landfall. This was due to murder and desperate suicides, as well as a declining birth rate. However, disease was the most devastating factor in their demise. Columbus and the Spaniards unleashed a deadly cargo of dysentery, tuberculosis, and influenza. Settlers wrote home about the unbearable stench of rotting bodies that filled the air.^b
46. During his third voyage, Columbus became the first European to see the coast of South America.^a
47. Columbus died believing that he had found was Asia. However, the closest Columbus ever came to Asia was when he went on a voyage to the island of Khios in modern day Greece when he was a teenager.^b
Columbus sparked the exploration and colonization of the Americas

48. Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain, in the years 1492, 1493, 1498, and 1502. His goal: to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia. He never found the route. He did find America—specifically, the Caribbean Islands, South America, and Central America.e
    
    

    

    Voyages of Christopher Columbus



49. In 1500, a royal commissioner was dispatched to Hispaniola to arrest Christopher Columbus and his brothers. They were brought back to Spain in chains under accusations of mismanagement of the colony. Although Columbus was stripped of his governorship, King Ferdinand granted him his freedom and subsidized a fourth trip.^e
50. In 1504, Columbus was stuck in Jamaica with angry islanders who would not give him food. Knowing that a lunar eclipse was going to happen, Columbus told the islanders that his gods were angry for refusing him food. After the eclipse, the scared islanders gave Columbus plenty of food and begged for mercy.^e
51. Christopher Columbus’ remains have been transported between the Old and New Worlds so many times that many historians believe that his remains are scattered in both worlds.^e
52. Columbus’ heirs were engaged in a legal battle with the Spanish monarchy until 1790 (nearly 300 years after his death). They argued that the monarchy did not give them the money or profits due the explorer.^e
53. Christopher Columbus lived during the Age of Discovery, a time between the 15th and 16th centuries when several European nations went exploring to search for wealth and lands.^c
54. Columbus’ first voyage into the Atlantic Ocean in 1476 almost cost him his life. French privateers off the coast of Portugal attacked the commercial fleet he was on. His shipped was burned and he had to swim to the Portuguese shore with the aid of a piece of driftwood.^c
55. While in Portugal, Columbus married Felipa Perestrelo and had one son, Diego, in about 1480. After his wife died (some scholars say he simply left her), Columbus moved to Spain. He had a second son out of wedlock, Fernando, in 1488 with a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enriíquez de Arana.^a
56. After his wife died, Columbus never married his mistress Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, most likely because she was not of noble blood. For someone as status conscious as Columbus, a wife who could not appear in royal court was unthinkable.^a
Diego Columbus was the eldest son of Christopher Columbus
57. Both of Christopher Columbus’ sons served as pages to Prince Juan, the son of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.^f
58. While the Santa Maria was the official flagship, Columbus frequently complained about its clumsiness and slowness. His favorite ship was the Nina, which was swifter and smaller.^b
59. The crew of the first voyage consisted of 24 men for the Nina, 26 for the Pinta, and 40 for the Santa Maria. Most were common sailors, and no women were allowed. There was also a secretary and an interpreter who spoke Arabic so that they could communicate with Ghengis Kahn and his people when they reached the East. There were also barrel makers, caulkers, and carpenters to fix the ships, as well as a surgeon.^b
60. During the voyage, every person—including Columbus—had lice. Fleas and rats were everywhere. There was no plumbing and the ships were filthy. The first voyage took about 43 days.^b
61. The sailor’s clothes on Columbus’ ships were extremely filthy. Everyone wore the same set of clothes they had when they left Europe until they returned to Europe. All crewmembers wore leggings, a woolen smock with a hood to protect salt spray, and a red cap called a gorro. And everyone went barefoot.^a
62. On his first voyage, Columbus kept two log books to avoid mutiny. In one log book, he recorded the actual distance the ships traveled each day. This book was only for him. In the second book, he recorded fake numbers, reducing the daily distance by many miles.^a
63. Christopher Columbus isn’t the explorer’s birth name; rather, it is Anglicization of his real name Cristoforo Colombo. His name has been changed in other countries as well: in Spanish it is Cristóbal Colón, and in Swedish it is Kristoffer Kolumbus.^b
Father Perez was a friend and supporter of Columbus
64. When King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella initially hesitated to fund Columbus’ exploration, a priest named Father Perez interceded and said that if Columbus succeeded, he would be able to convert heathen races to Christianity. In 1492, they finally give Columbus the funds and the ships.^f
65. Columbus was not interested in proving the Earth was round. By Columbus’ time, most people knew this fact thanks to the ancient Greeks—specifically the Greek mathematician Pythagoras, who lived in the 6th century B.C., and later Aristotle, who backed him up with astronomical observations.^a
66. Three countries refused to fund Columbus’ voyage: Portugal, England, and France. They refused because they thought he was a crackpot. They told him the Earth was much larger than he had calculated. They were actually right.^a
67. The first sailor in Columbus’ crew to see land (on October 12, 1492) was named Rodrigo de Triana. It was a small island in the present-day Bahamas named San Salvador.^a
68. Some historians believe that Muslims came to the Americas in the 700s, several hundred years before Christopher Columbus. In fact, Columbus used maps created by Muslim explorers.^d
69. Not all of Columbus’ voyages were successful; in fact, half of them ended in disaster. On his first voyage (1492), his fully outfitted flagship ran aground and sank. On his fourth trip, his ship rotted away and he spent a year with his men marooned on Jamaica.^f
70. A section from Columbus’ logbook notes that the natives “would make fine servants. With 50 men we could subjugate them and make them do whatever we want.” He later wrote, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”^a
71. While Columbus was not the first to “discover” America or the first European to visit the New World (Viking explorers had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland in the 11th century), he did kick off centuries of exploration and exploitation of the American continents.^b
Columbus believed the earth was far smaller than its true size
72. One reason Columbus estimated the distance around the Earth shorter than other navigators is that he had read Arab maps. As he read the maps, he used a shorter distance for a mile than the Arab map makers had used, causing him to estimate the circumference as being one-fourth less than the actual number of miles. Additionally, Marco Polo’s book, which Columbus relied on, estimated China as much larger than it really was, which also shrank the distance from Europe to Asia.^a
73. The Pinta is Spanish for “the painted one” or “prostitute.”^a
74. Columbus never set foot on the mainland of North America.^a

References 
 a Berne, Emma Carlson. 2008. Christopher Columbus: The Voyage That Changed the World. New York, NY: Sterling. b Chrisp, Peter. 2001. Christopher Columbus: Explorer of the New World. NY, New York: Dorling Kindersley. c “Christopher Columbus.” History.com. 2014. Accessed: January 27, 2014. d Fachner, Rebecca. “Did Muslims Visit America before Columbus?” History News Network. 2014. Accessed: January 27, 2014. e Klein, Christopher. “10 Things You May Not Know about Christopher Columbus.” October 5, 2012. Accessed: January 27, 2014. f Molzahn, Arlene Bourgeois. 2003. Christopher Columbus: Famous Explorer. Berkeley Heights: NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc.

Reposted from Random History.com