The following information is based on the Adorno and Pautz translation of Cabeza de Vaca's 1542 Relacion (f15r-f16v). Through Cabeza de Vaca's description we can start to visualize the rough barges constructed by the remaining exhausted and frightened members of the Narvaez expedition. Five rafts were built between August and September 1528. To build the rafts nails, saws, axes, and other tools were crudely fashioned from stirrups, spurs, and metal crossbow components. The rafts were 22 cubits (~33 feet) in length. They were caulked with a mixture of oakum from palmettos, as well as the tails and manes of horses. For tar they used pitch extracted from pine trees, and worked palmetto fibers to make rudimentary cordage. Cabeza de Vaca says they used their shirts for sails, and fashioned oars from savins growing nearby. They could not find stones for ballast, and used whole horse hides to carry fresh water on the rafts.

All of this hasty work was conducted under imminent threat of reprisals from neighboring Native American communities, we assume Aute. Crew members were repeatedly attacked while foraging for shellfish and supplies, and ten men were killed within sight of the camp. When the last horse had been eaten the orders to disembark were made. Each raft carried between 47 and 49 men and provisions (indicating more than 50 men had died since the overland trek began in May near Old Tampa Bay). Fully loaded, only a span (width of the hand from thumb to pinkie finger) of the side of the rafts cleared the water and inside the rafts were too crowded to allow freedom of movement. The barges set off with the intent of hugging the Gulf Coast until another Spanish outpost was found, but a combination of shipwrecks and foul weather that blew a raft out to sea ended any hope of return by sea.