Discover of the West Indies was imminent. Columbus only won because he took an irrational gamble.
Was anyone really going west before Columbus? Of course I assume the Portuguese might have discovered Brazil eventually anyway because of the ocean currents
Traveling west, reaching land, leaving enough evidence to confirm the story five centuries later, making it back, and finally, convincing other people that it happened? No.
I think that America being there at all is super hindsight-y. A priori there were no states in America that had made contact with the people’s across Eurasia and Africa. There were the Vikings, and some northern nomads.
The Pacific is huge. So big that you can’t fit it all in one hemisphere. We have had long periods with single supercontinents and no other major landmasses.
Sailing west into the Atlantic as a European was a massive gamble. Matched only by the navigators of the South Pacific, and even then they were far more competent navigators of open ocean and had techniques that Columbus didn’t have. He just had heaps of money, some great boats, and huge will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas
It's not known how they did so (windblown fisherman, or expeditions that kept knowledge secret, probably both). The truth is that the passage from Europe to Cape of Good Hope - and back - is much more natural following trade winds via Brazil.
I am always skeptical of these people who row from Spain/Azores to the Caribbean or mainland S. America, because if you push a boat out from the Azores at the right time of year, that's exactly where you will go. If I look at the speed of the 'rowers', compared to the sea drift of a small boat, I find they reduced their time by 50-60%.
If someone puts up a small unattended sail, or even had a bigger wind cross-section of a larger boat (with unused oars :), they would beat the rower every time. There are several records of unmanned boats abandoned in storms, or torn lose from their anchors, which float the crossing in similar times. The rower only wins in calm seas. The exertion of the rower may be admirable, but the time and the crossing are not.
Coming back is similar, but more demanding. First, you have to go north to find the westerly trades and the Gulf Stream, but once you do, your passage will be swift. However, the seas of N. Atlantic are stormier and colder, so if anything goes wrong, you are in a lot more trouble.
If they made it to the Azores, it would only take one storm, or a bold adventurer (not in short supply), to take one or more boats to the central Americas. There are legends of white bearded men in central American myths.