Hardly had the Spaniards reached the open sea in their canoes than they were overtaken by such a violent tempest that they knew not whither to steer, nor where to find refuge.  Trembling and frightened, they looked at one another, while Chiapes and the Indians were even more alarmed, for they knew the dangers of such navigation and had often witnessed wrecks.  They survived the peril and, after fastening their canoes to rocks along the shore, they took refuge on a neighbouring island.  But during the night, the tide rose and covered nearly the whole of it.  At high tide the south sea rises to such an extent that many immense rocks which rise above low water are then covered by the waves.  In the north sea, however, according to the unanimous testimony of those who inhabit its banks, the tide recedes hardly a cubit from the shore.  The inhabitants of Hispaniola and the neighbouring islands confirm this fact.

When the coast was left dry, the Spaniards returned to their culches, but were dumfounded to find all of them damaged and filled with sand.  Though dug out of tree trunks some were broken and split open, the cables that had held them having been snapped.  To repair them they used moss, bark, some very tough marine plants and grasses.  Looking like shipwrecked men and almost dead with hunger (for the storm had swept away almost all their stores), they set out to return.  The natives say that at all times of the year the incoming and the outgoing tides fill the islands of the gulf with a frightful roaring sound; but that this principally happens during the three months indicated by Chiapes, and which correspond to October, November, and December.  It was just within the month of October and, according to the cacique, it was under that and the two following moons that the tempest prevailed.

After devoting some days to rest, Vasco Nunez crossed the territory of another unimportant cacique and entered the country of a second, called Tumaco, whose authority extended along the gulf coast.  Tumaco, following the example of his colleagues, took up arms; but his resistance was equally vain.  Conquered and put to flight, all of his subjects who resisted were massacred.  The others were spared, for the Spaniards preferred to have peaceful and amicable relations with those tribes.

Tumaco was wanted, and the envoys of Chiapes urged him to come back without fear, but neither promises nor threats moved him.  Having inspired him with fears for his own life, extermination for his family, and ruin for his town, if he held out, the cacique decided to send his son to the Spaniards.  After presenting this young man with a robe and other similar gifts, Vasco sent him back, begging him to inform his father of the resources and bravery of the strangers.