A New World - Alvin Yang

It was a bright warm sunny day, our crew, led by the man named Gaspar de Portola, was heading out across the Pacific Ocean to search for new land. We were on the sea for a long time and I couldn't remember how many days had past. One day, one of our crew members saw land over the horizon. All of us cheered, the wind was blowing west heading toward the land, and our strongest men lifted up the sails as high as they ever went so we could reach the land faster. Portola started a party to celebrate their discovery. Everyone drank and were dancing around, some people drank to much and had gotten sea sick then fainted on the deck. In about three hours we were the first Spanish men to set foot on the new land.
We had spent the night in the ship because we didn't know what was on the island, and part of our crew were tired or scared to hike on new land in the dark. Once the sun rose from the horizon, our men woke up, had barely anything to eat because we were low on supplies. Portola commanded, half of our men guard the ships and look for food,  while the other half went with him to travel on further among the new land. 

I was one of the half that had to travel with Portola. I was kind of happyto travel with Portola because I wanted to see more of the new land, and I didn't want to guard the ships. While we were traveling, the ground started to shake and everyone fell down to the ground. I'm guessing that it was an earthquake of a 6.5 magnitude. After about five hours of walking and resting, we felt three more earthquakes, but of a low magnitude. The sun started to go down, some of us were afraid because they were going to camp outside in the dark on new land that we don't know anything about. We camped near a mountain and made a fire hopefully to keep some wild animals away.....

by

 Alvin Yang