The six ships were given him, men and supplies were put on board and on the twentieth of May, 1498, the Admiral set out on his third voyage to what every one now called the Indies.
There was not nearly so much excitement among the people about this voyage.

Cathay and its riches had almost become an old story; at any rate it was a story that was not altogether believed in.

Great crowds did not now follow the Admiral from place to place begging him to take them with him to the Indies.

The hundreds of sick, disappointed and angry men who had come home poor when they expected to be rich, and sick when they expected to be strong, had gone through the land, and folks began to think that Cathay was after all only a dream, and that the stories of great gold and of untold riches which they had heard were but "sailors' yarns" which no one could believe.
So it was hard to get together a crew large enough to man the six vessels that made up the fleet.

At last, however, all was ready, and with a company of two hundred men, besides his sailors, Columbus hoisted anchor in the little port of San Lucar just north of Cadiz, near the mouth of the Guadalquivir river, and sailed away into the West.
This time he was determined to find the continent of Asia.