This squadron set out from Lisbon on 1 April 1502, intending to catch up and join the 4th Portuguese India Armada of admiral Vasco da Gama, which had left a few months earlier (February 1502).
It is notable that it was admiral Vasco da Gama himself (not usually known for his cultural sensitivity) who arrested the three men and handed them over to the Cochinese authorities for justice, and forbade any further purchases of cows by Portuguese sailors.
[7] Somewhere around the Cape of Good Hope in July, Lopes reports an encounter with two of the ships of the outgoing 5th Armada of Afonso de Albuquerque.
A clue is given in Lopes's own account, where he describes how, in August 1502, they picked up letters in Malindi left by the returning João da Nova.
It is widely regarded as reliable, and frequently resorted to by historians to correct the accounts by later 16th-century chroniclers (João de Barros, Gaspar Correia, etc.