November 22, 1497

Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama's fleet rounds the Cape of Good Hope

The fleet sighted the Cape on 18 November and spent days being pushed back by contrary winds — then slipped around it at noon on the 22nd, in one spare detail recorded by the journal.

Noon, 22 November 1497

The fleet had sighted the Cape of Good Hope on 18 November 1497 and then spent days being pushed back by contrary south-southwesterly winds. An attempt on 19 November was frustrated outright.

On Wednesday 22 November, with a following wind at last, da Gama's four ships approached again and doubled the Cape at noon, continuing eastward along the southern African coast.

Eastward by nightfall

Even the pilot's experience had not made the approach obvious: Pero de Alenquer had sailed with Bartolomeu Dias, yet initially could not tell how far the fleet still lay from the Cape.

The expedition's chronicler recorded the decisive moment in one spare detail — a following wind carrying them around at noon. By the end of the day the fleet was east of the Cape and sailing along Africa's southern coast.

What the journal does not claim

The surviving journal describes the fleet passing the Cape, not completing a Europe-to-India route: the voyage reached the Calicut area only on 20 May 1498, and Dias had already rounded the Cape in 1488. What was new was a direct Portuguese sea passage from Europe around Africa, not a European discovery of Indian Ocean navigation, which already supported extensive African, Arab, Persian and Indian trade.

Three days after the rounding, on 25 November, the fleet entered São Brás Bay, where the store ship was dismantled and its supplies transferred to São Gabriel, São Rafael and Berrio.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 3 audit passes, 1 issue open

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

The surviving Roteiro is the only known account written by a participant, but its author is unidentified and da Gama's own original reports are lost.
Ravenstein notes that later chroniclers supplied 20 or 21 November, but their stated weekdays are inconsistent; the Roteiro's Wednesday, 22 November is the best-supported date.
Historical accounts disagree substantially about the fleet's original crew size.