immediately launched to outfit a squadron, under the command of Afonso de Albuquerque, to seize the island for Portugal. The Socotra squadron was adjoined to the 8th Armada of 1506 led by Tristão da Cunha. Diogo Fernandes himself sailed on it, albeit only as a master of Albuquerque's ship, the Cisne ('the Swan', usually transcribed as Cirné). In late 1506, when the 8th Armada made the usual stop in Mozambique Island, the admiral Tristão da Cunha ordered a pause in the expedition to explore the island of Madagascar (then known as the ilha de São Lourenço). During this interlude, it is speculated that Albuquerque (uninterested in such exploratory ventures) elected to stay in Mozambique, and temporarily passed his ship, the Cirné, over to the command of the master Diogo Fernandes Pereira. Diogo Fernandes is said to have struck a wide arc east of Madagascar and stumbled upon the island of Réunion, which he promptly named ilha de Santa Apollonia (in honor of the St. Apollonia whose day it was, February 9, 1507). He proceeded east to discover the island of Mauritius, which he named ilha do Cirne (the name of his ship). From there Fernandes went further east and discovered the island now known as Rodrigues, but which at the time was named on maps as the ilha de Diogo Fernandes, Domigo Friz or Domingo Frias (the latter two probably just poor cartographic transcriptions or abbreviations of 'Diogo Fernandes'). He is said to have stopped for water at the first and third islands, before returning to Mozambique. Diogo Fernandes island ('Domigo Friz') was visited by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in 1509 and the name 'Don Galopes' (another transcribed abbreviation) sometimes appears for that island in some maps. It went through its final name change, to Rodrigues island much later, after another Portuguese explorer Diogo Rodrigues visited the area in 1528. The entire archipelago was named the Mascarenes islands, after D. Pedro Mascarenhas, who visited the islands in 1512, following up on Sequeira's report. Afterwards After returning from his Mascarene jaunt, Diogo Fernandes Pereira went on to participate with Albuquerque in the conquest of Socotra that summer. We have no more records of him afterwards. If Diogo Fernandes remained aboard the Cirne after Socotra, he would have participated in the battle of Hormuz in the Fall of 1507, but we have no record of him there. More importantly, we have no