After the shattering experience of the storm, Columbus, although he did not return to San Domingo, remained for some time on the coast of Espanola repairing his ships and resting his exhausted crews.  There were threatenings of another storm which delayed them still further, and it was not until the middle of July that the Admiral was able to depart on the real purpose of his voyage.  His object was to strike the mainland far to the westward of the Gulf of Paria, and so by following it back eastward to find the passage which he believed to exist.  But the winds and currents were very baffling; he was four days out of sight of land after touching at an island north of Jamaica; and finally, in some bewilderment, he altered his course more and more northerly until he found his whereabouts by coming in sight of the archipelago off the south-western end of Cuba which he had called the Gardens.  From here he took a departure south-west, and on the 30th of July came in sight of a small island off the northern coast of Honduras which he called Isla de Pinos, and from which he could see the hills of the mainland.  At this island he found a canoe of immense size with a sort of house or caboose built amidships, in which was established a cacique with his family and dependents; and the people in the canoe showed signs of more advanced civilisation than any seen by Columbus before in these waters.  They wore clothing, they had copper hatchets, and bells, and palm-wood swords in the edges of which were set sharp blades of flint.  They had a fermented liquor, a kind of maize beer which looked like English ale; they had some kind of money or medium of exchange also, and they told the Admiral that there was land to the west where all these things existed and many more.  It is strange and almost inexplicable that he did not follow this trail to the westward; if he had done so he would have discovered Mexico.  But one thing at a time always occupied him to the exclusion of everything else; his thoughts were now turned to the eastward, where he supposed the Straits were; and the significance of this canoe full of natives was lost upon him.

They crossed over to the mainland of Honduras on August 15th, Bartholomew landing and attending mass on the beach as the Admiral himself was too ill to go ashore.  Three days later the cross and banner of Castile were duly erected on the shores of the Rio Tinto and the country was formally annexed.  The natives were friendly, and supplied the ships with provisions; but they were very black and ugly, and Columbus readily believed the assertion of his native guide that they were cannibals.  They continued their course to the eastward, but as the gulf narrowed the force of the west-going current was felt more severely.  Columbus, believing that the strait which he sought lay to the eastward, laboured against the current, and his difficulties were increased by the bad weather which he now encountered.  There were squalls and hurricanes, tempests and cross-currents that knocked his frail ships about and almost swamped them.  Anchors and gear were lost, the sails were torn out of the bolt-ropes, timbers were strained; and for six weeks this state of affairs went on to an accompaniment of thunder and lightning which added to the terror and discomfort of the mariners.