what we owe to seaweed

     When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in fourteen hundred and ninety-two, his men were ready to mutiny. They had been a long time at sea, and were beginning to think they would never find land again. The men wanted Columbus to turn around and go back to Spain. They didn't find land immediately, but they soon sighted the Sargasso Sea. The Sargasso Sea is a big pile of seaweed floating in the ocean. It looked a little bit like land to Columbus and his men, so the men put off plans to mutiny. They found real land in a few more days--landing in what is now the Bahamas, and discovering the "New World".  If Columbus and his men hadn't encountered the Sargasso Sea--the pile of floating seaweed--they might have turned back. And where would we be now? I suppose someone else would have found the Americas eventually, but we wouldn't have a Columbus Day Parade.