4th Armada in Cochin under D. Luis Coutinho. (Rumors of the imminent peace with Calicut angers the merchants of Cochin, who feel they will be short-changed by any agreement with Calicut; Coutinho has a difficult time securing the continued purchasing and loading of spices). Gama is taking only a light escort, but he imagines Vicente Sodré is in the vicinity and will provide additional security. However, as it happens, Vicente Sodré had left Calicut a few days earlier. He had been maintaining a continuous blockade on Calicut harbor, and engaging in repeated cat-and-mouse chases with small Calicut fishing ships that dared venture out. At one point, Sodré gave a couple of fishing boats chase into a side-channel, and sailed into a trap – forty armed Calicut paraus quickly surrounded him. A lucky cannon shot on the lead ship broke up the ambush, allowing Sodré to extricate himself from there quickly. He sailed out and raced back to Cannanore to pick up the rest of his patrol. Gama arrives in Calicut harbor during this absence, unaware of any of this. Seeing no sign of Sodré, Gama orders the escort caravel to go towards Cannanore to find him. He anchors his own ship, the large Flor de la Mar, inside the harbor and lowers a skiff to take the Brahmin to shore, to meet the Zamorin and arrange for the delivery of the compensation payment, retaining the Brahmin's two relatives and the Nair on board as hostages. Three days are spent waiting, the Brahmin shuttling back and forth between the ship and the shore repeatedly to report and consult on the progress of the negotiations. All seemed to be going well, but in the early morning hours of the fourth day, however, a hundred armed zambuks and paraus swarm into the harbor from the nearby channels and quickly surround the Flor de la Mar. The Flor'''s high sides do not allow the Portuguese to respond with artillery – the ship's cannons are mounted too high and the paraus are too close for an angle of shot, so the crew turns desperately to crossbows, musket fire and heaving rocks to keep them at bay. Days before the encounter, Gama had captured a large parau, which was now tied to the stern of the Flor. In the heat of the fighting, Malabari sappers row up to the tied parau, fill it with tinder, set