way to the city of Lisbon and its community of Genoese merchants and shipbuilders. By 1477 Columbus was well settled in Lisbon, and worked with his brother Bartholomew, who was a mapmaker, for a time as draftsman and book collectors. Later that year Columbus set sail with a convoy with goods to be sold in northern Atlantic ports.
             In about 1478 Columbus met and married Felipa Perestrello e Moniz who was the daughter of a respected but relatively poor noble family. Soon after their marriage they accompanied the rest of her family back to Porto Santo, where felipa's oldest brother took over the governorship. Then about 1480 Columbus and Felipa moved to the island of Madeira soon after the birth of their son Diego, and it is believed that Felipa died soon after.
             In late 1481 or early 1482 Columbus sailed to the Portuguese fortress of Elmina, in what is now Ghana, on the western coast of Africa. Columbus was impressed with the riches Africa offered, especially gold. In addition, like all good navigators, he was eager to learn about winds and ocean currents from the local pilots and sailors. In the waters off the coast of Africa and the nearby Canary Islands Columbus first observed the ocean phenomenon known as the Canaries Current. Knowledge of this fast-moving current running west of the Canary Islands could well have been the reason that Columbus later chose to start his crossing of the Atlantic in the latitude of the Canaries, far south o
             ...