Saint Brendan of Clonfert, Clonmacnoise and Abbeyshrule set sail from The Blaskets Islands to America with twelve disciples in the sixth century. Following the Gulf Stream he sailed south to the Canarys where he stopped off for water and provisions on the enchanted island of La Gomera. The indigenous Guanche saw his reed sailboat from afar, hastening to their caves high in the mountains in case it might be a precurser of a Berber invasion from west Africa. Content that it was not so they came down the mountains from Garajonay with gifts of fruit, vegetables and Gofio, a blend of cereals that had sustained the Guanche through famine, pestilence and invasions.
Realising that these healthy, powerful Atlantic people were similar to the Celts he blessed them and gained their confidence by ridding them of their snakes just as St. Patrick had done for the Irish. promising to return he set sail for the Azores and on to Cuba before discovering America.
On his way home he encountered a ferocious storm off the Canarys and was saved by the sudden appearance of an island where the hove to lest they perish in the mountainous waves that threatened to engulf him and crew. As the storm abated St. Brendan felt the ground move around him so he hurried his disciples back on board before the island slipped beneath the waves. Back on La Gomera he related the incident to Gara the King of the Guanche who confirmed the existence of such a phenonomenon henceforth referred to as La Isla de San Berendón, the Island of Saint Brendan. There have been many sightings and much written since about this mythical island that seems to appear when sailors are in dire straits
