Topic summary
Grand Turk
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Grand Turk Island.
Columbus landfall theory
Grand Turk has been put forward as the possible landfall island of Christopher Columbus during his first voyage to the New World in 1492. San Salvador Island or Samana Cay in the Bahamas is traditionally identified with Guanahani, the site of Columbus' first landfall, but some believe that studies of Columbus' journals show that his descriptions of Guanahani much more closely fit Grand Turk than they do other candidates. Magnetic variations that caused misreadings in Columbus' compasses demonstrate that several of the recorded moorings using a rope-secured anchor to a clear sandy bottom would not have been possible had Columbus sailed from the islands of the Bahamas. In addition, the latitudes recorded in Columbus' diary place the landfall island at 90 nautical miles (100 mi; 170 km) from Hispaniola, too close for the Bahamas, but almost exactly the distance from Grand Turk.