Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation

---

---

A ruttier from Cartagena to Havana in Cuba .

COMMING from Cartagena to goe to Havana , thou must goe Northnorthwest untill thou be in foureteene degrees: and then forwardes thou shalt goe with great care to anker every night, and when it is day set sayle. And this is to bee done in this place because of the shoalds of Serrana: and so thou mayest proceede with a care to anker when thou commest about Seranilla, or neere to it, which is in fifteene degrees and a halfe. And upon it thou shalt see a lowe flatte land lying Northeast and Southwest: and the sea beateth upon it round about, except that on the Southeast part it hath certaine shelves of sand, and on the West side it hath a certain litle copple, which from sea seemeth to bee a shippe under sayle : and being Northeast and Southwest off it, scant a league from the shoald commeth out on the West side a certayne shoald, whereupon the sea doth alwayes beate.

I advise thee that if thou canst not passe on the West side, then thou must goe betwixt the sayd little copple that it is like a sayle and the shoald: for the passage is good. But if thou depart from the Serranilla to the Northwest, and seest a lowe land with the sea, and certaine white sandy bayes, and on the West side seest a low land, and on the Eastside a little coast lying East and West, thou mayest make account it is Cape de Corrientes.

And if thou goe from Cape de Corrientes for Cape de Santo Antonio, thou must goe Westnorthwest, and so thou shalt goe with the Cape. The marks be a low land full of trees with certaine white sandie bayes: and upon the Cape it selfe thou shalt see two thicke groves of great trees, and they be upon the Cape it selfe.

To go from the Cape de Sant Antonio for Havana in the time of the North winds, thou shalt goe Northwest untill thou be cleere of all the shoalds of the Cape, and then hale thy bowlines, and go as neere the wind as thou canst possibly, untill thou bring thy selfe unto 24. degrees, and there sound, and thou shalt find it the Tortugas, and thy sounding will be white sand.

Thou must take heede what is said in the Chapter before: for he that writ the same hath seene it, and bene witnesse to this: that comming from Seranilla, and stirring North and by East he had sight of an Island standing in 16. degrees, and it is on the shoalds of Cape de Camaron. And from thence, if thou have the wind large, goe Northeast and by East, because of the variation of the compasse, and thou shalt make thy way Eastnortheast, and thou shalt fall with Isla de Pinos. This I say, because the currents set sometime West: and so it fell out to bee true in March, Anno Domini 1582. I tell thee farther, that wee came out from this aforesayd Isle stirring North and by East, for the wind would not suffer us to lye neerer the East, and one evening at Sunne going downe we fell with a land, that had the same markes to our judgement with the Cape de Corrientes: and because night was at hand, we wrought to double Cape de Sant Antonio, stirring West: and about midnight we had land all high right a head, & the coast lying Southwest: and then we cast and lay Northeast till day: And being day, wee saw the land all a head, and we plied to windward to the East, and kept it a larboord till we had brought it Southwest. And to be short, we went here on land in the same place that we first fell with in the evening before: and it was an Island called Cozumel, lying on the coast of Yucatan . And this Island was the land which we saw first, seeming by the marks to be the Cape de Corrientes. Wee came to an anker about the middest of the Island, rather to the Norther then the Souther part: there we found a towne of Indians, who gave us all things which we needed for our money: and wee carried our Astrolabs on shore and tooke the height in 19. degrees and one tierce. A man may goe betweene this Island and the coast of Yucatan , and the Cape de Catoche at pleasure Northeast; and the water wil set in thy favour: and thou must go till thou be in 24. degrees, and so thou shalt have the sounding of the Tortugas.