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Updated: May 1, 2025
The striking differences of tint on the bank of Newfoundland, in the archipelago of the Bahama Islands and on La Vibora, the variable quantities of earthy matter suspended in the more or less troubled waters of the soundings, may all be the effects of the variable absorption of the rays of light, contributing to modify to a certain point the temperature of the sea.
I was surprised that, at the noon observation, at 17 degrees 7 minutes of latitude, we yet perceived no change in the colour of the water. Spanish vessels going from Batabano or Trinidad de Cuba to Carthagena, usually pass over the bank of La Vibora, on its western side, at between fifteen and sixteen fathoms water.
The latter circumstance appears very doubtful; below 30 degrees of latitude the cooling produced by the waters of the bank is not sufficiently considerable to cause this phenomenon. During the time we passed on the bank of the Vibora the constitution of the air was quite different from what it had been when we quitted it.
The wind freshened more and more from the south-east, as we advanced in the direction of Cape Negril and the western extremity of the great bank of La Vibora. We were often forced to diverge from our course; and, on account of the extreme smallness of our vessel, we were almost constantly under water.
We succeeded in changing our course and in less than a quarter of an hour were out of danger. While we traversed the bank of the Vibora from south-south-east to north-north-west I repeatedly tried to ascertain the temperature of the water on the surface of the sea.
The outlets of the basin, of which the four largest* are 75 miles broad, are all on the eastern side, open towards Europe, and agitated by the current of the tropics. Domingo; Jamaica, the Bank of La Vibora and the rock of Serranilla to Cape Gracias a Dios on the Mosquito Shore.
I was surprised to see that on the east of the little Cayo de Don Cristoval the high banks are only distinguished by the milky colour of the water, like the bank of Vibora, south of Jamaica, and many other banks, the existence of which I ascertained by means of the thermometer.
The volcanic flame can only issue from the deep when the rocky bed of the ocean is already heaved up so that the flames and incandescent scoriae escape from the swelled and creviced part without traversing the waters. Having attained the parallel of 17 degrees, the fear of pirates made us prefer the direct passage across the bank of Vibora, better known by the name of the Pedro Shoals.
When we survey on the map the proximity of the high lands of San Domingo, Cuba and Jamaica, in the neighbourhood of the Windward Channel, the position of the island of Navaza and the bank of Hormigas, between Capes Tiburon and Morant; when we trace that chain of successive breakers, from the Vibora, by Baxo Nuevo, Serranilla, and Quita Sueno, as far as the Mosquito Sound, we cannot but recognize in this system of islands and shoals the almost-continued line of a heaved-up ridge running from north-east to south-west.
The colour of the troubled waters on the shoal of La Vibora has not a milky appearance like the waters in the Jardinillos and on the bank of Bahama; but it is of a dirty grey colour.
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