Columbus and the countess

Our taxi driver rolled his eyes. 'Discursos!' Speeches. We were discussing the forthcoming acto institucional due to take place that evening in the park, 'institutional act' being a fancy way of describing a couple of hours of speeches. There would be speeches by - at the very least - the president of the Canary Island parliament, the president of the Gomeran Cabildo (the island council), the mayor of San Sebastián and, as invited guest speaker, the rector of the university in Tenerife. 'Aagh!' cried our taxi driver, throwing both hands into the air, 'Save me from speeches by university professors!'

He was only joking, of course, Spanish people love a good speech. And if, halfway through the third monologue, you feel the magic beginning to fade, you can always sidle away in the growing darkness to one of the bars around the park.

The person responsible for this gathering of dignitaries was Almirante Cristóbal Colón, known in Britain as Admiral Christopher Columbus. La Gomera was his final stop before setting out across the Atlantic into the unknown, on the sixth of September 1492. One of the island's soubriquets is La Isla Colombina, the Island of Columbus, and he is commemorated in San Sebastián by a slightly strange bronze bust, unveiled by the King of Spain in 2006.

We need a little history here, before we get to the gossip. The Admiral's plan was to reach the East Indies - those rich, spicy islands a few weeks' sailing beyond India - by heading in the wrong direction, westwards, to circle the globe and reach the Indies from the other side. In this way he would avoid the irritating obstacle of Africa.

Five weeks into the voyage his little fleet of three ships sighted land ahead. The Indies, already! But no, they soon realised - this was too soon. They found themselves sailing through a broad scattering of completely unknown islands with beautiful white beaches and waving palm trees.

Columbus called the first island he set foot on San Salvador, the Saviour, and today's experts have a lot of fun arguing about which island it was. But it doesn't really matter - he had discovered, entirely by accident, the outlying islands of the Americas, the New World. These islands later became known as the West Indies, perhaps as consolation for Columbus who had failed to reach the East Indies.

He wasn't the first European, of course, to find the Americas. A Norwegian, Leif Erikson, landed on the northern tip of Canada nearly 500 years before Columbus set sail. But being fair, Columbus had no reason to suspect that land up there in the far north of the Atlantic would still get in his way thousands of miles further south.

And also being fair, what Columbus discovered was not the cold north of the North American land mass but the warm, lush Caribbean and, just a little further on, the vast southern half of the American continent. A big find, and he didn't even know about all the gold and silver at that stage.

However, here's the interesting bit. Columbus called into La Gomera ostensibly to stock his ships with food, water and wine and to rest his crew before their big adventure. But he also - if the rumours are to be believed - had a torrid affair with a Spanish countess living on the island.

And not just any old countess, but Beatriz de Bobadilla, widow of the Spanish aristocrat appointed to rule here on behalf of the Crown, a job Beatriz had now inherited.

Rumours perhaps, tittle-tattle, but the evidence for this liaison seems pretty solid to me. Just look at the facts. On his first voyage in 1492, Columbus puts into the port of Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, a much bigger island than La Gomera. On leaving Gran Canaria he sails no more than a day before making another stopover here in La Gomera. Why does he need to do that? Has he already heard about the beautiful widow?

And he lingers here not just for a day or two but for a month! (It has been suggested that one of his ships required repairs which, as well as being a very boring explanation, also sounds unlikely. Fresh leaks in the hull, after a day's sailing in calm waters?)

The following year, 1493, he sails directly from Cádiz in Spain to La Gomera. Directly! No messing about in Gran Canaria first, or even Tenerife or La Palma, all much larger islands with greater resources. I mean, if this isn't already as clear as daylight...

When he eventually manages to tear himself away from the countess he retraces his earlier route westwards across the Atlantic and discovers the islands we now call Antigua and Puerto Rico.

He then has to wait a few years - difficulties with funding, perhaps - until his third voyage in 1498, when he again puts into La Gomera as his first stop. But maybe things hadn't gone quite so well with the countess the last time, because by now she has already married someone else.

So Columbus sails on, and this time discovers the island of Trinidad and the coast of Venezuela, his first contact with the South American mainland, which must have made him feel a bit better about everything. On his fourth voyage, in 1502, he calls into Gran Canaria for supplies then sails straight past La Gomera without pausing. Nose in the air - see if I care!

We shall never know who uttered what kind of wounding words on that fateful second visit, whose passion began to cool, who persistently snored or stole all the bedclothes. Whatever, it seems to have marked the end of their brief affair.

None of the earnest discursos on the sixth of September covered this particular aspect. They never do. A big mistake in my opinion, I guarantee it would keep everyone firmly in their seats.

The illustration of Columbus on his flagship, the Santa María, is from a painting by Emanuel Leutze (1855)