1492, He Sailed the Ocean Blue

Our last day at sea and it was very relaxing and informative as well.  We started with a lovely breakfast after sleeping in, again, and followed this up by walking 3 miles (12 laps) around the ship on its walking deck.  Today there was only one person walking the "wrong" way (counterclockwise) and he wasn't getting in anyone's way.  There were a lot more people out walking, though, and who could resist the beautiful weather and views of the lovely blue Gulf of Mexico as we edged closer to Ft. Lauderdale.

After walking, we adjourned to the Star Theater for our last port talk, and this one was on Christopher Columbus.  That was fitting because he was really the one who got this whole Central America thing started!  I was anxious to hear what this historian had to say since, as of late, the word on him has been, at best, a mixed bag.  Even in my hometown of Columbus, we've struggled with just what to do with his statue that was removed a few years ago from the front of City Hall.  After hearing the lecture, I acknowledge that his legacy is tainted a bit but he lived in a different time and place when things were acceptable that aren't now.  We're eager to judge and shouldn't be so; he was just a man but deserves a ton of credit for what he accomplished.

Columbus (1451 - 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator from Genoa.  He completed four Spanish-based voyages (after talking King Ferdinand and his adoring sponsor, Queen Isabella into providing financial support . . . four times!) across the Atlantic, opening the way for widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas.  His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.  All of his voyages were designed to find a new westward route to China and Japan which he thought would be faster than existing eastbound routes, and to convert those he found into Catholicism.

He died in 1506, and the next year the New World was named "America" after Amerigo Vespucci who realized it was a unique landmass. The search for a westward route to Asia was completed in 1521 when the Magellan expedition sailed across the Pacific Ocean to reach southeast Asia before returning to Europe, completing the first circumnavigation of the world.

Here's where the "mixed bag" comes in.  Experts rank Columbus' seamanship as second to none, discovering routes still used today for trans-Atlantic travel.  In fact, an overhead announcement from our captain just reflected that when he described the currents are adding about 2 knots/hour to our ship returning from the west to Ft. Lauderdale to the northeast. But in finding the islands of the Caribbean, Columbus was not hesitant to use his power and authority on the indigenous people, frequently bringing deadly disease and enslaving many of them.  The historian noted that, while slavery existed in Europe prior to Columbus, his activities turbocharged it.  Over the 300 years that followed his voyages, these areas of Central America declined in population by 80%.

So, a simple summary is that we should honor his significant accomplishments, while acknowledging that he didn't do things the way we'd do them today.  His motives and actions, though, were fitting for those times and must be recognized in that fashion.  Personally, living in a large city named after him, I'd like to see his statue returned to a place of prominence with a full explanation accompanying it.  We'll see.

The rest of our day was pretty ho hum. . . .a nice lunch, sitting on our veranda staring at the blue Gulf of Mexico (not that silliness of Gulf of America), a brief nap, dinner, a movie ("Harry and Tonto" from 1974 with Art Carney), and bed.  We have to have our luggage in the hallway by 10 p.m. for pickup and readiness to move off the ship en masse tomorrow morning.  We meet, then, in the Star Theater at 7:15 a.m. for eventual transport to the Ft. Lauderdale airport, onto our plane, and home around 5:30 p.m. via Atlanta.

Really looking forward, as always, to being home.  And, we'll be there just in time to spend New Year's Eve getting ready for the hoped for Buckeye beatdown of the Miami Hurricanes that night.  It has been a great trip and a couple of days from now I'll share the last post with my thoughts on what we've seen and done over the past ten days.

Until then, happy new year and hoping you have a healthy, wonderful 2026.