Portuguese India Armadas Portuguese India Armadas The Portuguese India Armadas ("Armadas da Índia") were the fleets of ships, organized by the crown of the Kingdom of Portugal and dispatched on an annual basis from Portugal to India, principally Goa. These armadas undertook the Carreira da Índia ("India Run"), following the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope first opened up by Vasco da Gama in 1497–1499. For a long time after its discovery by Vasco da Gama, the sea route to India via the Cape of Good Hope was dominated by the Portuguese India armada – the annual fleet dispatched from Portugal
Pacific Ocean for the elixir of immortality. From 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The first contact of European navigators with the western edge of the Pacific Ocean was made by the Portuguese expeditions of António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão, via the Lesser Sunda Islands, to the Maluku Islands, in 1512, and with Jorge Álvares's expedition to southern China in 1513, both ordered by Afonso de Albuquerque from Malacca. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached