Since, this week's theme includes The Sea, I am interested in learning about the business finances of expeditions during the Age of Sail and Discovery. Lets take the voyage of Columbus as an example to illustrate the context.

My questions are:

• How much did Columbus's voyage cost?

• Why was it so expensive even for a country? This doesn't seem right. Even a small neighborhood today can finance such a voyage and we are talking about an entire nation/country. Back then the monarch's built large public works and had large armies. A voyage with a few wooden ships, sailors and food doesn't look like that costly.