The Niña’s crew had lost sight of the Pinta during the storms off the Azores on the night of February 13 and surmised it had sunk.
But the Pinta had survived, and its captain, Martín Alonso Pinzón, brought it to harbor at Bayona on Castile’s western coast, north of Portugal, by early March 1493. Martín dispatched a letter to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand in Barcelona, explaining that he was the captain of one of Columbus’s ships and requesting an audience to relate his voyage to the islands and mainland of the Indies.