Velasquez was disappointed but not deterred from prosecuting the great enterprise which he had in mind. He would not wait for the report of the procuradors and the action which the king might take upon it, but hastened his preparations for another expedition to Yucatan, which he regarded as by far the most important land of all that had thus far been discovered by the Spanish in the Western Hemisphere. The leader of the new venture was to be his nephew, Juan de Grijalva, who appears not to have been well fitted for the task. Grijalva was commissioned in January, 1518, and in the same month set out from Santiago de Cuba with a flotilla of four vessels. Sailing eastward he rounded Cape Maysi and thence proceeded north and west along the Cuban coast to what is now Matanzas, where a stop was made for repairs and supplies. Thence he went to Havana for further supplies and men, and tarried for some time, so that it was not until some time in April--some say April 5, others a much later date--that he finally set out from Cuba. He had four vessels, carrying two hundred and fifty men, among whom were several of whom the world was later to hear much; such as Bernal Diaz, and Pedro de Alvarado, who was captain of one of the vessels. The chief pilot was Antonio Alaminos, whose plan was to follow the same course that Cordova's expedition had pursued. Upon passing Cape San Antonio, however, the little squadron fell into the grip of a "norther" which carried it somewhat out of its course, and on May 3 it first sighted land at Cozumel Island, of which Grijalva was thus the discoverer. Doubling back, the expedition followed the course of its predecessor around Punta Catoche and along the Yucatan coast to Champoton. Thence it continued westward, discovering the Tabasco and other rivers, and the great bay near Vera Cruz which still bears the name of Alvarado. How far up the Mexican coast it sailed is not altogether clear, but it certainly passed Cabo Rojo, and probably reached Tampico and the mouth of the Panuco River. Thus to two Cuban expeditions must be credited the discovery of the vast empire thereafter known as New Spain. De Solis and Pinzon had skirted a part of the coast of Yucatan in 1506 but had made no landing. Indeed, Columbus himself on his last voyage had visited some of the coastal islands, but had apparently ignored the proximity of the mainland. Cordova was the first to reach the actual coast of Yucatan and to explore a portion of that country. Grijalva in turn was the first to discover and to land in Mexico; of which country he formally claimed possession, in the name of Velasquez, for the King of Spain, it was he, too, or some member of his expedition, who gave to Mexico the name of New Spain.