Comments on: Old mariners, modern explorers—part one

By: Nicolaas Vergunst

Nicolaas Vergunst — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 20:52:35 +0000

The visiting frigate NRP Álvares Cabral (your photo is not visible here) lies near the spot where we think Dias and Almeida first came ashore: Dias with an astrolabe to calculate his latitude, Almeida with a carafe of wine for his lunch. Ironically, both died trying to round the Cape. Cabral, however, was first to set foot in America, Africa and Asia, thus binding together four continents in the name of the largest maritime Empire the world had ever seen. Mike, you’ll find their biographies in KoS pp.79-80.

By: Mike Golby

Mike Golby — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 11:50:49 +0000

To emphasise history cementing the Cape’s link to Portugal, here’s a snap taken from the upper deck of the frigate NRP Álvares Cabral in 2007. I like to think of it as “Dias’s Revenge” since he, a captain in Cabral’s fleet, died off his “Cabo das Tormentas” ten years before Almeida landed.

The NRP Álvares Cabral was part of a visiting NATO fleet, the flagship of which was the USS Normandy, en route to do the work of Empire at the time.

By: Nicolaas Vergunst

Nicolaas Vergunst — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 17:18:04 +0000

A fascinating saga, Anita, thanks for sharing your research.

By: Anita Venezia

Anita Venezia — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 17:11:41 +0000

When Christopher Columbus was on first voyage to find India in October 1492, the ship hit the doldrums, wind died and they rocked for days in the windless sea… The men threatened to mutiny and turn back… They spied “monsters” in the depths, and Columbus used this to scare the mariners… They had been waylaid in the Sargasso Sea and believed the seaweed swishing around the ship were giant octopi, when the wind kicked up they set sail again… The mariners believed the monsters were under the ship and historians wrote of it.

I wrote an article years ago and came across this info. Also, Columbus kept two sets of logs, one for his eyes only so no one else knew the route.