Columbus leaves Santo Domingo for Castile in a chartered nao

… all the other people stayed on this island, and from here some passed to that of Sant Juan, when they went to settle it, or, better said, to destroy it. He set sail on the 12th day of September of the same year 1504, and then, on leaving this river, two leagues out, the mast split on the ship at the root of the deck, for which the Admiral ordered it back to this port, and himself continued his voyage in the other ship; and having had good weather until almost a third of the gulf, such a terrible storm struck them that they saw themselves in great danger of being lost. On a Saturday, 19 October, the storm having ceased and they being in some calm, the whole mast came down, in four pieces, but the effort of the Adelantado and the ingenuity of the Admiral, though greatly afflicted in bed by gout, remedied it, making a small mast from the lateen yard, thickening and strengthening half of it with the slats and timber of the castles that they took apart. …