ABSTRACT
In this determination we headed toward land and in a little more than eight days we caught sight of it at a position of 34 degrees latitude. Despite our belief that we would find here the winds which ordinarily run north-east and east, there lay in wait for us, as if in ambush, west and north-west winds which attacked us with a fury which proved to be our undoing. We would sail along yielding to the force of the storm whenever we could not do otherwise; at other times we would lie head to windward, backing the sails, as they say, which means using the mainsail and the foresail against the wind with the bow facing the wind. In the few calms afforded by the weather, the sailors amused themselves by throwing nets into the sea and catching a great quantity of fish - which is the usual recreation of those who find themselves becalmed. The species they caught is, in my opinion, the best in the world, and there was a great abundance of it. However, we never fished for it without being justified in saying: 'adhuc escae eorum erat in ore ipsorum et ira Dei ascendit super eos,' as God's prophet says in the psalm. 1 For we were barely at table raising the first bites to our mouths when the wrath of God descended upon us in the form of a horrible storm, so that we firmly believed our fishing to be a bad omen and we ate it fearfully, but like a child who forgets a beating as soon as his back is relieved of pain, we continued to take this recreation whenever there was a respite in the stormy weather.
