A strong east wind drives Columbus to Tortuga and back

He left the Puerto de la Concepción again to go on his way, but on leaving the harbor a strong east wind blew, contrary to him, and he stood across toward la Tortuga as far as the island, and from there he turned back to see that river that yesterday he had wished to see and reach and could not, and on this tack too he could not reach it, though he anchored half a league to leeward off a beach, a good, clean anchorage. His ships moored, he went with the boats to see the river, and entered by an arm of the sea that lies less than half a league before it, and it was not the mouth: he came back and found the mouth, which had not even one fathom of water, and the river came down very strongly: he entered it with the boats to reach the villages that those he had sent the day before yesterday had seen, and he had the towline run ashore, and the sailors, hauling on it, took the boats up two lombard shots, and he could go no farther for the strength of the river’s current. …