Chuck, you sound like a frustrated history Prof. What is the source
of these pearls if I may ask?

There's a huge body of literature on Columbus. I must have read 100 Columbus
books over the last 35-40 years. Those points I listed above are among the
issues that the majority of the authors and researchers agree upon.

A good place to start is "The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus," detailing
all four of his voyages to the west.

One of the difficulties with getting a good handle on Columbus is that when
those of us who are middle aged today were kids,
we were taught a lot of bogus information about him. I remember an illustration
in my grade school history book, showing Columbus holding up an orange and
trying to convice a group of scholars that the world was round. We were even
taught that Columbus made his voyage to the west to "prove the world was round
and that it would be possible to reach land by sailing over the horizon to the
west". What a hoot!
But the teachers didn't know any better, and taught us what they thought they
knew.