Or, as Pete said, quoting the Journal, if "like a small 

 wax candle raised and lifted up," it had been a torch 

 carried in the canoe of an Indian fisherman a few miles 

 o£Fshore, it would still be possible for those on board 

 Columbus's ships to have seen it five miles away. 



In either case, Pete declared, the presence of a light 

 was a good argument that land had to be nearby. And 

 the fact that Columbus claimed and received his own re- 

 ward of ten thousand maravedis was proof that all were 

 convinced the light was real. He and Ed said this was 

 an excellent argument for the Caicos landfall, for, as we 

 knew, both from the charts and from our airplane recon- 

 naissance, it would have been impossible for the three 

 ships to be near land or in the vicinity of a light if they 

 had been approaching Watling island. 



Ed and Pete had then headed Sea Diver toward 

 Caicos, on the same course which they figured Columbus 

 might have followed. At noon, directly ahead, they had 

 sighted Grassy creek with its white sand beach. It could 

 have been on this very spot, they speculated, that Colum- 

 bus dropped his anchors at daylight and laimched the 

 ships' boats to go to shore. 



Columbus's description of Guanahani fitted Caicos 

 perfectly, they said: ". . . very large and very flat; with 

 very green trees and much water. In the center of it, there 

 is a very large lagoon; there are no mountains, and aU is 

 so green that it is a pleasure to gaze upon it." I had noted 

 during my flight earlier that day that the island also an- 

 swered Las Casas' description as being bean-shaped and 

 of considerable length. 



Sea Diver had then sailed up and down these waters 

 several times, from the harbor at South Caicos around 

 the archipelago to a point beyond the ruins of Fort 

 George, on the western side. The men had explored the 

 large reef harbor at Jacksonville, the very one I had picked 



312 Sea Diver 



