section_path: Third voyage and death/The underwater quake
section_name: The underwater quake
paragraph_text: The underwater quake
  
  After a troubled journey in which four or five of the ships were lost en route, he arrived in India in September.
  
  Early on the morning of September 8, as the ships laid becalmed near Dabul the sea began to boil and the vessels pitched and rocked violently for about an hour as the result of an submarine earthquake. The Portuguese crews were frightened, and one death occurred as a sailor jumped overboard in panic and drowned. Gama capitalized on the situation and so as to reassure his men cried out:
  
  Friends, rejoice and be happy, for even sea trembles before us!