en years later Christopher Columbus was again thwarted by a hurricane. He had just set sail from Central America in 1503 when a hurricane moved in from the Atlantic, and he had no choice but to sail through it. He credits God for allowing his rickety old ships to successfully navigate through the storm. Here is an except from his diary regarding his crews' journey into the storm:Eyes never beheld the seas so high, angry, and covered by foam. The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any headland for shelterNever did the sky look more terribleThe lightning broke forth with such violence that each time I wondered if it had carried off my spars and sails; the flashes came with such fury and frightfulness that we all thought the ships would be blasted. All this time the water never ceased to fall from the sky1 In 1607 the colonists founded the city of Jamestown and hurricanes hadn't been reported since 1570, when part of the Spanish Armada was sunk by a hurricane. Many people weren't had forgotten they even existed. Two years after Jamestown was Mytych 2officially settled, a fleet of ships was headed to the colony from England when they were caught in a violent hurricane. When the few survivors staggered into the harbor on the storm-beaten ships, they told horror stories that spread throughout the world, and the hurricane was once again feared as in the days of Hurakan. It was this fear that inspired Shakespeare to write The Tempest, his famous play about a violent hurricane. One last historical account of a hurricane is an ironic story that involves the Pilgrims. Most people know that the Pilgrims fled England from religious persecution and landed at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. But records show that their destination was actually Virginia, where they would reside in Jamestown before founding their own colony. It was an encounter with a hurricane at sea that sent them off course and...
