Vasco da gama

1. Vasco Da Gama

Vasco da Gama was the son of Estevaoda Gama
During his childhood, Vasco da Gama was educated as a nobleman and he
served in the court of King Joao II. He was brought up in a maritime
environment and trained in fishing, sailing and swimming during his
childhood. At the age of fifteen he was a sailor. In Evora, he studied
navigation and astronomy. Perhaps, he learnt astronomy under the
guidance of the astronomer Abraham Zacuto. In 1492, King John II of
Portugal sent Vasco da Gama to the port of Setubal to capture the
French ships engaged in peacetime predations against the Portuguese.
Vasco da Gama effectively accomplished this feat. From the early years
of the fifteenth century, the nautical school of Henry the Navigator was
exploring the African coastline. Their plan was to reach India via a sea-
route. There were ongoing plans since Vasco da Gama was a child of an age
ten.


Vasco Da Gama wanted to find a way to Asia
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on July 8, 1497, following the route
pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and
the Cape verde Islands. Gama took a course south into the open ocean,
crossing the equatar and seeking the south Atlantic and westerlies that
Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful
and on November 4, 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African
coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than 6,000 miles
of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by
the time. Then they found Malinda. Soon they set out north and reached
Culicut

Vasco da Gama set sail for home on August 29, 1498. Eager to leave he
ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns, which was still
blowing onshore. Crossing the Indian Ocean to India, sailing with the
monsoon wind, had taken Gama's ships only 23 days. The return trip
across the ocean, sailing against the wind, took 132 days, and Gama
arrived in Malindi on January 7, 1499. During this trip, approximately half
of the crew died, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Two of
Gama's ships made it back to Portugal, arriving in July and August of
1499.Vasco da Gama returned to Portugal in September 1499 and was
richly rewarded as the man who had brought to fruition a plan that had

2. taken eighty years to fulfill. He was given the title "Admiral of the Indian
Seas.








In the Voyage of Vasco Da Gama He crossed the Atlantic Ocean and he
went traveled through the Indian Ocean and to Calicut and the to Goa
then he traveled back.



http://www.buzzle.com/articles/vasco-da-gama-childhood.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/vasco_da_gama_01.shtml
http://www.asij.ac.jp/elementary/gr5web/c5r/explorer_reports/gwen.ht
m
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/d/dagama.shtml
http://www.answers.com/topic/vasco-da-gama
http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b2gamavasco.htm