This he did; and on the twelfth of August, 1503, he deliberately headed for the shore and ran his ships aground in a little bay on the island of Jamaica still known as Sir Christopher's Cove.

And there the fleet was wrecked.
The castaways lashed the four wrecks together; they built deck-houses and protections so as to make themselves as comfortable as possible, and for a whole year Columbus and his men lived there at Sir Christopher's Cove on the beautiful island of Jamaica.
It proved anything but beautiful for them, however.

It makes a good deal of difference, you know, in enjoying things whether you are well and happy.

If you are hungry and can't get anything to eat, the sky does not look so blue or the trees so green as if you were sitting beneath them with a jolly picnic party and with plenty of lunch in the baskets.
It was no picnic for Columbus and his companions.

That year on the island of Jamaica was one of horror, of peril, of sickness, of starvation.