the nina and the pinta were small carvels, the santa maria, better known as la calissa was a carock, a larger vessel, and here you see the santa maria and in the misty background the nina and the pinta. and this is a very romantic view obviously, the departure of christopher columbus. whether it was as ceremonial as this, who knows. it may have been get on board and get out, but this indicates some great ceremony at which the admiral with the ocean sea with three vessels is bound to the indices. he had a view of the world if he sailed to the canary islands off the coast of spain and portugal and headed due west he would bump into japan in about 2,400 miles. that was his estimate. if you look at a map of the globe, look at a globe, you notice if you look at the latitude, remember, we talked about latitude the other day, that the latitude of the canary islands in the atlantic and the latitude in the pacific within a few degrees roughly comparable, roughly comparable. so from that point of view columbus has had a decent idea. i will go to the canary islands and pick up the latitude, the