Damien Enright: Christopher Columbus, romance and murder in La Gomera

When Countess Beatriz de Bobadilla and Columbus met, he would have been a man of 46, strong, healthy and not long a widower. She was a Contessa, far above him in status, but woman of her times and not one to languish in mourning for long

A statue of Christopher Columbus.

To the south of Tenerife, the Canary Islands resort, lies the small and very beautiful island of La Gomera. Too mountainous for an international airfield, it is still usually reached by ferries plying from Los Cristianos in Tenerife to the small capital and port of San Sebastian.

Christopher Columbus arrived in San Sebastian in 1492, the last port in the known world before the unchartered ocean. He came on the invitation of a young Castilian noblewoman, recently widowed, the Countess Beatriz de Bobadilla. Her husband, Hernan Peraza, had been the Count of La Gomera. Now, she ruled the wild island alone. Columbus made lengthy stops there on the first three voyages.