Christopher Columbus the first of five children in his modest family, first worked by helping his father keep up on the tavern also took after his father of being a weaver of wool. Being born into a town where sailing is what the town is built on he soon got bored of being on land and wanted to sail. He first set sail to sea at the age of 14 years old …show more content…
On these trips he had gained key information and knowledge of the Atlantic currents flowing east and west from the Canary Islands. Columbus wanted to travel east but the Muslims had total domination of the trade routes through the Middle East making travel to India and china very difficult for Columbus and his crew. Columbus took a different approach to this problem he had been faced with. He believed that there was a quicker and safer route which proceeded west across the Atlantic. Columbus devised a plan to sail west until he would reach the east. He also believed the earth to be a sphere about 63% of its actual size. Another idea he had believed that the canary islands and japan were 2,300 miles apart. Most nautical experts disagreed with Columbus’s idea. In the second century the BC estimate of the earth’s circumference at 25,000 miles. This would mean that japan and the Canary Islands were about 12,200 miles apart. While the experts disagreed with Columbus of the distance matters, they strongly disagreed with the westward voyage from Europe to the new