Christopher Columbus, after stopping over in August in Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, had put in at Gomera for wine and water, intending to stay only four days.

Becoming romantically involved with the widowed Governor of the island, Beatriz de Bobadilla, he stays a month.

When he finally departs from San Sebastián de La Gomera on September 6, for what will turn out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean, she gives him cuttings of sugarcane, which will become the first to reach the New World.