610-595 B.C.) commissioned a group of Carthaginian mariners to circumnavigate the African continent. If indeed this voyage occurred, the sailors would most certainly have passed by the cape, which juts some 25 miles (40 km) from the African mainland. Further contact may have occurred during a voyage of Hanno (fifth cent. B.C.) down the west coast of Africa.
During medieval times, Sanhajah Berber tribes established their dominance in the area, only to be overtaken by Bedouins from further east. There was little other competition, however: squeezed as it was between the ocean and the desert, the area around Cape Bojador was hardly worth the trouble of conquering it. Added to this was the fearsome reputation the cape had acquired in the eyes of mariners.
The Arabs called the place Abu khatar, meaning "father of danger," and indeed Cape Bojador became the site of many a shipwreck. The reason for this was a network of reefs surrounding the cape, which created a sort of net for catching ships. As distant as a league (5 kilometers) from shore, the sea was only a fathom (about 2 meters) deep, and as though the shallows were not forbidding enough, the northern side of the cape was subject to violent waves and currents, while fogs and mists often covered the region as a whole.
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