Having settled in the new Spanish colony of Hispaniola in 1501, in 1511 Balboa joined an expedition to Darien (in Panama) as a stowaway, but rose to command it after a mutiny. He founded a colony in Darien and continued to make expeditions into the surrounding areas. In 1513 he reached the western coast of the isthmus after an epic twenty‐five‐day march, thereby becoming the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.