At the Canary Islands, Columbus altered the sails of the caravel La Nina, and made a new rudder for the Pinta. On Thursday morning, the sixth of September, the three vessels set sail from the island Gomera, of the Canary group, “and stood away to the west.” On the following Sunday, at day-break, when the fleet was nine leagues west of the island of Ferro,[140] the sailors “lost sight of land, and many, fearing that it would be long before they should see it again, sighed and wept, but the admiral, after comforting them with large promises of land and of wealth, to raise their hopes and lessen their fears respecting the length of the voyage, pretended that by his computation they had sailed only fifteen leagues that day when they had really run eighteen, he having determined to keep, during the voyage, his reckoning short, in order that the men might not think that they were so far from Spain as they were, should he openly set down the progress made which he privately recorded.[141] “Continuing his voyage in this way, on Wednesday, the twelfth of September, about sun-setting, being about one hundred and fifty leagues west of the island of Ferro, he discovered a large piece of the trunk of a tree of one hundred and twenty tons, which seemed to have been a long time in the water. There and somewhat farther the current set strongly toward the northeast. When he had run fifty leagues farther westward, on the thirteenth of September he found at night-fall that the needle varied half a point toward the northeast, and, at day-break, half a point more, by which he understood that the needle did not point at the north star, but at some other fixed and visible point. This variation no man had observed before, and therefore he had occasion to be surprised at it; but he was more amazed on the third day after this, when he was almost one hundred leagues farther, for at night the needles varied about a point to the northeast, and in the morning they pointed upon the star.”[142] As they sailed on this westward course, they found “more weeds than they had hitherto toward the north as far as they could see, which weeds were sometimes a solace to them, believing that they might come from some land that was near, and sometimes they caused dread, because they were so thick that in some measure they impeded the ships, and fear making things worse than they are, they apprehended that that might happen to them which is fictitiously reported of Saint Amaro in the Frozen Sea, which it is said does not suffer ships to stir backward or forward, and therefore they steered away from the shoals of weeds as far as possible.[143]