[conspire] Federales in Portland?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):

> Except for one thing.  Have you ever tried to take a Caravel into the
> deep ocean with just sales, and no map?
> 
> These guys had balls.

Granted.  And, _if_ there had been little or nothing 
between his point of departure and China, and if he truly knew the
approximate real size of Earth, that would only make it even more gutsy.

As it was, they had a six-week voyage across the Atlantic after leaving
the Canary Islands -- until they finally reached some island in the
Bahamas or Turks & Caicos chains.  Before they pulled off that feat,
nothing west of the Azores and Madeira had been known to Europeans
(other than by the Vikings, of course).  Well, technically, there 
_is_ convincing evidence Portuguese navigators had already established
that there were lands over here, and Columbus may have known:
https://www.americanheritage.com/was-america-discovered-columbus

Also, as the article points out, there were somewhat vague but
compelling claims left over from the ancient Phoenicians that they had
visited vast lands far beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

But even so:  gutsy.  Sometimes, gold fever helps for that.  (For
Columbus, it really was all about the gold he expected to come home
with.)