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It is shown on nautical charts as "Cabo Bojador" and is sometimes spelled "Cape Boujdour". It is said that it is also known as the "Bulging Cape," although no references to this usage are to be found in standard geographical references. The Cape's name in Arabic is "Abu Khatar", meaning "the father of danger." The cape is not prominent on maps but may be located by looking 220 km (120 nautical miles) due south of the southwestern point of the hook of Fuerteventura , Canary Islands . Historical significance The discovery of a passable route around Cape Bojador, in 1434 , by the Portuguese mariner Gil Eanes was considered a major breakthrough for European explorers and traders en route to Africa and later to India . Eanes had made a previous attempt in 1433 which resulted in failure, but tried again under orders of Prince Henry The Navigator , who first sent him in 1424 . He was successful after the fifteenth expedition. The disappearance of numerous European vessels that made prior attempts, despite its violent seas, to round the Cape led some to suggest the presence of sea monsters. The region's coastal areas quickly became a very important area for the Portuguese traders, whose first delivery of African Slaves to Lisbon occurred in 1434 . The reason for the fearsome reputation of the cape is not immediately obvious from maps, where it appears as the southwestern point of a slight hump in the coastline, bounded at its other end by Cabo Falso Bojador, ten nautical miles to the northeast. Nor does what is said in the ''Sailing Directions'' sound terribly formidable: "Cabo Falso Bojador is formed by several tall sand dunes. ... A rocky shoal, with a least depth of 4.8m, extends up to 3 miles N of the cape. A rocky patch, with a least depth of 8m, lies about 2 miles W of the cape. The coast between Cabo Falso Bojador and Cabo Bojador, 10 miles SW, consists of a sandy beach fringed by rocks. Clumps of scrub top the sand dunes which stand about 0.5 mile inland of this beach. Heavy breakers have been observed along this coast at all times. Cabo Bojador, a very low point, is located 9.5 miles SW of Cabo Falso Bojador and is bordered on the S side by black rocks. From the N, the cape appears as a mass of red sand with a gradual slope towards the sea. From the W, the cape is difficult to identify, but from the S its extremity appears as a reef which dries in places and is marked by breakers even in calm weather." When we examine the ''Pilot Charts'' for this area, however, it becomes clear that the main concern lay in the changes in winds that occur at about the point at which Cabo Bojador is passed in sailing down the coast. It is here that the winds start to blow strongly from the northeast at all seasons. Together with the half-knot set of current down the coast, these conditions would naturally alarm an ignorant and superstitious Medieval mariner used to sailing close to the land and having no knowledge of what lay ahead. How was he to get back home to Portugal against a dead foul wind and current? In the end it was discovered that by sailing well out to sea -- far out of sight of land -- a more favorable wind could be picked up. References: ''Sailing Directions (Enroute), West Coast of Europe and Northwest Coast of Africa'' (Pub. 143) (Bethesda: National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency, 2005), p. 214, s.v. "Cabo Bojador." C R[alph Boxer, ''The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825'' (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1969) 1991 , pp. 25-6. ''Atlas of Pilot Charts: North Atlantic Ocean'' (Washington: National Imagery and Mapping Agency, 2002). In modern time Spain claimed a protectorate over the coastal region from Cap Blanc, far to the south of Cape Bojador, to a point about 200 km to the north in 1884 . In 1975 , as Spain pulled out, Morocco invaded and Annexed the Western Sahara, but this has never been recognized internationally. The Sahrawi nationalists of the Polisario Front have put up armed resistance, although they now observe a cease-fire, and rivals the Moroccan claims with its Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic . Today the towns near Cabo Bojador are heavily "moroccanized", due to a large influx of non-Sahrawi settlers and Moroccan military personnel, coupled with the flight of many of the native Sahrawis to the Refugee Camp s in Tindouf , Algeria . There are occasional flare-ups of political tension between indigenous Sahrawis and settlers, and in 2005 pro- Independence Demonstrations And Riots led to police crackdowns in Cape Bojador. In the Tindouf region of Algeria , there is a Sahrawi Refugee Camp named after Cape Bojador. See Daira De Bojador . |