under factor António de Sá, with two assistants and twenty armed men to protect the factory. That settled, Albuquerque returned to Cochin on January 12, 1504 to make final preparations for his departure. Saldanha in Africa Throughout much of this, the third squadron of the Fifth Armada were still fruitlessly looking for each other in Africa. Diogo Fernandes Pereira had long disappeared from sight somewhere after Cape Verde, and had hurried on ahead by himself, while the other two ships, António de Saldanha and Rui Lourenço Ravasco, ended up by mistake at São Tomé. Table Bay In the Summer of 1503, while the Albuquerques were doubling the Cape, the third squadron was probably still making is way painfully down the African coast, tacking against contrary winds and currents. Somewhere along this process, Saldanha lost track of Ravasco as well. Again, by poor piloting, Saldanha miscalculated his Cape crossing, and ended up making landfall just north of the Cape of Good Hope. To check if the cape had been surpassed, Saldanha anchored in the hitherto unknown Table Bay, and went ashore. He is said to have climbed Table Mountain and observed Cape Point and the vast expanse of False Bay beneath it. Saldanha thus became the first European to set foot in what is to become modern Cape Town. During this landing, there was an apparent skirmish with local Khoikhoi, in which Saldanha got slightly wounded. [Table Bay was promptly named Aguada de Saldanha (Saldanha's watering stop) by Portuguese cartographers. However, in 1601, Dutch cartographer, Joris van Spilbergen mistakenly identified another bay, much further to the north (modern Saldanha Bay), as Aguada de Saldanha and hence a new name, 'Table Bay', was introduced for Saldanha's actual anchoring spot.] What happened from this point is a bit obscure. By one account, as chance would have it, the two other ships of the Third Squadron - Rui Lourenço Ravasco and Diogo Fernandes Pereira - may have found each other on the other side of the Cape, at another watering hole, the Agoada de São Brás (Mossel Bay). From here, they decided to proceed together to Mozambique Island, the pre-arranged collection point for Portuguese ships, hoping to find Saldanha there. But Saldanha was, of course, behind them, still trying to get around the Cape. It is possible that at this point Rui Lourenço Ravasco decided to stay in Mozambique Island to wait for Saldanha,