Third Armada would learn of the Second Armada's voyage along its own voyage from notes and letters left by Cabral's ships at African staging posts. Even if the Third Armada learned about the misfortune of the Second Armada, the aforementioned conditions meant that it could not go home to acquire reinforcements or otherwise change the circumstances of its journey. Lightly armed, it would have to press on, sneak into India stealthily, avoid Calicut, load spices at friendly ports, and leave, all as quickly as possible. Outward voyage The armada left in the spring of 1501. Sources vary as to whether it left on March 5 or April 10; Duarte Leite's analysis claims that the earlier date is more likely. According to chroniclers, the first major events happened in May. Correia states that the Third Armada followed the instructions given by Gaspar de Lemos or André Gonçalves (the captain of a ship that returned from Brazil the previous year). It went southwest and made a brief watering stop at Cape St. Augustine in northeast Brazil, before heading towards southern Africa. All other chroniclers do not mention the Brazilian stop. Barros and Góis mention the discovery of Ascension Island in the same month, an event that Correia himself does not record. Proceeding in the South Atlantic, Nova sighted Ascension Island, which he named Ilha da Conceição ("Conception Island"). The island is confirmed to have been discovered later by Afonso de Albuquerque, who gave it its modern name (ilha da Ascensção) in 1503. The fleet crossed the Cape of Good Hope on July 7, 1501 without a known incident. It anchored at Mossel Bay (Aguada de São Brás). There, Nova found a note in a shoe by a watering hole. The note was left about a month earlier by Pêro de Ataíde, one of the captains of the returning Second Armada. Ataíde's note, addressed to all captains bound for India, warned that Calicut had become hostile to the Portuguese, but that Cochin (Cochim, now Kochi) and Cannanore (now Kannur) were still friendly ports where spices could be procured. It also recommended India-bound captains to go to Malindi, where Pedro Álvares Cabral left letters that contained more detailed information. Centuries later, the South African government declared the milkwood tree where Ataíde hung his shoe a national monument and erected a shoe-shaped postbox below it. In the middle of July 1501, the Third Armada arrived