The men were already desperate, all resources had started to finish as well as the spirits. Several revolts had already happend in the past weeks and they keep intensifying. Some of the men were planning on mutiny, take control, throw Christopher overboard and get back home.
People on board of the Pinta were the more anxious ones, but it was complicated to “coordinate” the mutiny with the people in the Niña and in Santa Maria. That night Christopher decided to stay at the bow, he wouldn’t had been able to sleep anyways. This time the sea was calm and there was barely any sounds until. It was almost 10 the admiral yelled for Pedro Gutiérrez.
The yell caught Christopher’s attention who looked at the top of the aft castle where the two men were talking and they started pointing at something. Christopher’s heart speeded up and his blood started running faster. “Land! I knew it!” Was the first thing that came to his mind but then he looked at the direction where the men were pointing at and something spine-chilling caught him by surprise.
A light far away was moving, up and down, it went very high and stayed up in the sky for a moment foing back after almost 10 seconds. He thought he might was sleepy but when he rubbed his eyes the light was gone, the admiral yelled this time for Rodrigo and when he started pointing nor Rodrigo nor Christopher were capable of looking at the ligth. Rodrigo made a gesture with the hand and left away.
Christopher couldn’t take his look away from where the lights had appeared before. Not even one minut had past when the lights showed up flashing and started going up and down, they disappeared and just few seconds later they made the same movements going as far as the sky and disappeared right away.
Nowadays it can be read at the logbook of Christopher Columbus’ first voyage:
“After sunset, he sailed his first way west. They would be two miles every hour, and up to two hours after midnight they would walk 90 miles, which is 22 leagues and a half. Since the admiral at 10 at night, being in the aft castle, saw a fire, although, as it was such a closed thing, he did not want to say it was land, but he called Pedro Gutiérrez, the king’s pastry chef, telling him that it looked like a fire, that he should look at it, and so he did and saw it. Also telling Rodrigo Sánchez de Segovia, that the king and queen sent him as a seer, who saw nothing because they were not in a place where he could see. After the admiral said it, he saw himself once or twice, and it was like a wax candle that rose and rose, which to few seemed to be an indication of earth, but the admiral certainly had to be next to the earth.”
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Ache 
Thank you so much for your great posts!
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