Considering the culture that Columbus came out of, what he did was nothing short of astonishing.
It's astonishing that somebody from a Renaissance Italian seafaring culture became a sailor, managed to get funding for an expedition based on an underestimation of the size of the planet about which he consistently refused to listen to as it happened entirely correct outside opinions, then spent the rest of his life on a power trip that alienated so many of his subjects as Governor of the Indies that at one point he and his brothers were hauled back to Castile in chains for incompetence and tyranny? Actually, now that I lay it out like that, I agree with you, I'm just not astonished in a
good way.
We should have a day to honor explorers in general, not one specific more-than-usually historically significant but less-than-usually admirable one.