Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) set out on his first voyage with Juan de la Cosa (ca. 1460-1510), the pilot and owner of the Santa Maria who had accompanied Columbus in his famous expedition of 1492. The voyage was funded by the Spanish crown and lasted 17 months. Vespucci sailed from Cadiz with a fleet of four ships on May 10, 1497. He reached the Canary Islands, where he stopped for eight days to restock water and wood. He then resumed his journey in a west-by-south direction, sailing on the open seas for 37 days. The fleet arrived on the coast of Honduras, at latitude 16° north and longitude 75° west of the Canary Islands. Vespucci continued north-west along the coast, as far as a city built on water that he compared to Venice. The locality was situated just below the Tropic of Cancer in a region then known as Parias. The fleet sailed up the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and, after a stop to replenish supplies and caulk the ships, made its way to Hispaniola, the island discovered by Columbus. From the map prepared by Juan de la Cosa the following year, it appears that Vespucci, in this voyage, circumnavigated the island of Cuba, which Columbus had regarded instead as a part of the Asian continent. The expedition continued northward. Vespucci crossed the Bahamas Islands and up the coast of Florida to latitude 35° north. From there, perhaps sailing past the Bermudas, he returned to Spain, arriving on October 15, 1498.