From There We Sailed So Far

This passage from the Roteiro describes the great southern loop Vasco da Gama's fleet made into the South Atlantic — a deliberate strategy to catch favorable winds around the Cape of Good Hope rather than hugging the African coast. The fleet spent approximately 93 days out of sight of land, longer than any previous European open-ocean voyage, before reaching the Cape Verde Islands and then the southern African coast near present-day South Africa. The maneuver was based on knowledge gained from earlier Portuguese explorers and demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of Atlantic wind patterns.