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. But by the time he arrived, either Albuquerque had already gone or it was determined that Ataíde, having fallen deathly ill, could not be taken back to Lisbon. In either case, Ataíde remained in Mozambique, where he would die soon after. On his deathbed, Ataíde wrote his final testament, giving a full and exact account of his time in India, including the travails of Vicente Sodré's Indian coastal patrol in 1503 (placing much of the blame for that debacle on the shoulders of Brás Sodré) and condemning the behavior of António do Campo (for refusing to help him and his shipwrecked crew in Mozambique.) Reduced to two ships, Afonso de Albuquerque and Fernão Martins de Almada (Campo having gone on ahead by himself), set sail out of Mozambique for Lisbon. They were unaware of the tragic fate of the squad of Francisco de Albuquerque and Nicolau Coelho (and possibly unaware of Ataíde too). Almada's ship began to have trouble, and they were forced to make a stop at the watering hole of São Brás (Mossel Bay) (there, Albuquerque found a message from António de Saldanha, the captain of the third squadron, saying that he had been there the previous October). While at São Brás, they realized that the ship of Albuquerque had rotted through and they were forced into lengthy repairs. On May 1, 1504, Afonso de Albuquerque and Fernão Martins de Almada finally set out from São Brás and rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed into the South Atlantic. The return passage through the equatorial doldrums, turned out to be a horrific experience. According to Empoli, they drifted at sea without wind for sixty four days, quickly running out of supplies. Thirst and scurvy decimated the crews - 130 died, leaving only nine on each ship. In the calm of the doldrums, barnacles had eaten away at the hulls, and the ships began to spring leaks. They were rescued from their dire straits by a passing Portuguese slaving ship bound for Guinea, which replenished their supplies