5th Portuguese India Armada (Albuquerque, 1503)
One of the squadrons of the armada, under António de Saldanha, missed the crossing to India, and ended up spending the year preying along the East African coast.
Captains of this squadron made several significant discoveries - such as Table Bay (South Africa) and, more importantly, the strategic island of Socotra (near the Gulf of Aden).
António de Saldanha was a Castilian nobleman in Portuguese service, Diogo Fernandes Pereira an experienced sailing master, probably commanding a ship outfitted by the merchant community of Setúbal.
The Zamorin's resilience and resourcefulness made it clear to Vasco da Gama that a show of force alone wasn't enough to reduce Calicut to obedience, that this was going to be a longer fight, which required more men and firepower than the 4th Armada had brought.
June/July 1503 - The second squadron of Francisco de Albuquerque, apparently having had a generally less troubled trip than the others, was the first to round the Cape of Good Hope - albeit losing one ship, that of Pedro Vaz da Veiga, in the process.
They were followed soon after by the solitary ship of Duarte Pacheco Perreira (of the first squadron), followed soon after by d'Almada's São Cristóvão (on which Empoli probably is) and, a couple of weeks later, by the captain-major Afonso de Albuquerque himself.
Nonetheless, Trimumpara's son, Narayan, is said to have rallied the Cochinese and valiantly held his position on the Vembanad shores, repelling two massive assaults, before being finally overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.
Narayan's brave stand gave his father and his Portuguese guests (the factor Diogo Fernandes Correia and a handful of assistants) enough time to evacuate Cochin city and flee across the outlet to Vypin island with the core of the Nair guard.
Frustrated, the Zamorin ordered his army to lift the siege - but not before burning down Cochin city to the ground, and vowing to come back in August, after the weather improved.
Ignoring the instructions he had been given by Vasco da Gama, Sodré had decided to sail out to the Gulf of Aden in the Spring of 1503, to prey on Arab shipping coming out of the Red Sea, hoping thereby to reap a little bundle of plunder for himself.
[13] It was at Angediva (or Cannanore, according to Correia[14]) that the crippled patrol was finally found by the vanguard of the 5th Armada in August 1503 - that is, Francisco de Albuquerque and Nicolau Coelho.
Receiving the alarming news at Cannanore, Francisco de Albuquerque wasted no time and rushed his fleet of eight ships - the three of the 5th Armada, the four caravels of the old coastal patrol plus Campo - down to relieve Cochin.
Francisco de Albuquerque's makeshift squadron arrived at Cochin, to find the Trimumpara Raja and the Portuguese factor Diogo Fernandes Correia once again holed up in Vypin island, besieged by the armies of Calicut.
So a punitive expedition of four caravels set out (under the commands of Nicolau Coelho, Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Pêro de Ataíde and António do Campo) to tour the Vembanad lagoon and pay a 'visit' to the collaborators.
More precisely, senior members of his family were probably deposed and it is from this date that Trimumpara formally took the Edapalli throne for himself, thereby becoming recognized overlord throughout the Vembanad lagoon.
October, 1503 - Setting out from East Africa by himself, Afonso de Albuquerque, captain-major of the 5th Armada, crossed the Indian Ocean and arrived in Cochin (just in the nick of time - as the monsoon was on the point of reversing.)
Hearing of the events that had occurred in the past month, Afonso immediately assumed command from his cousin, Francisco, and oversaw the finalization of the construction of Fort Sant'Iago and the arrangements with the Trimumpara Raja of Cochin.
Diogo Fernandes Pereira had long disappeared from sight somewhere after Cape Verde, and had hurried on ahead by himself, while the other two ships, António de Saldanha and Rui Lourenço Ravasco, ended up by mistake at São Tomé.
By one account, as chance would have it, the two other ships of the Third Squadron - Rui Lourenço Ravasco and Diogo Fernandes Pereira - may have found each other on the other side of the Cape, at another watering hole, the Agoada de São Brás (Mossel Bay).
It is possible that at this point Rui Lourenço Ravasco decided to stay in Mozambique Island to wait for Saldanha, while Diogo Fernandes Pereira sailed north, presumably to Malindi, to see if he could catch up with the Albuquerques.
Of the other two, we know that in October, 1503, António de Saldanha was still stuck in South Africa - for he had left his own note at the watering hole in Mossel Bay (São Brás) with that date.
He placed Duarte Pacheco Pereira in charge of Fort Sant'Iago of Cochin, with a garrison of some 150 armed men and two caravels, (one of which was the Garrida of Pêro Rafael) and one nau, the Concepção.
This included the ships of Afonso's cousin Francisco de Albuquerque and great captain Nicolau Coelho (the old veteran of Gama's 1497 expedition and Cabral's 1500 armada).
It is presumed that F. de Albuquerque and Nicolau Coelho were caught by bad currents in the Mozambique Channel and shipwrecked or sunk off the coast of South Africa.
On the Indian Ocean crossing, the ship of Pêro de Ataíde o Inferno seems to have sailed on ahead at too much speed and capsized on the East African coast, somewhere south of Kilwa.
Leaving behind the greater part of his shipwrecked crew on a nearby shore, Ataíde and a handful of men managed to make it to Mozambique Island on longboats, hoping to procure help for the remainder.
Almada's ship began to have trouble, and they were forced to make a stop at the watering hole of São Brás (Mossel Bay)[28] (there, Albuquerque found a message from António de Saldanha, the captain of the third squadron, saying that he had been there the previous October).
Afonso de Albuquerque deserves credit for efforts to procure spices against complicated odds in India and the negotiation for a factory in Quilon, but the losses of so many ships (and so much cargo) couldn't have made this a profitable run.
The loss of Francisco de Albuquerque and Nicolau Coelho weighed heavily in court, and in late 1505, a small search-and-rescue mission led by Cide Barbudo was sent out to scour the South African coast for their traces.
Of the seven ships of the 4th Armada which had been left behind in the Indian Ocean by Vasco da Gama in early 1503, one returned (Campo), two were lost (Sodré brothers), two remained in India (Pires, Rafael) and the fate of two is uncertain (Bardaças, Ataide's original caravel).
