Vasco da Gama, the first European to reach India by sea (in 1498), hired an Indian pilot at Malindi (a coastal settlement in what is now Kenya) to steer the Portuguese ship across the Indian Ocean to the Malabar Coast in southwestern India.
Many of her crew were Muslim Lascars who had problems during Ramadan 1919, as they were above the Arctic Circle and the sun did not set.
On reaching Tikopia, a Polynesian outlier of the Solomons, three of the survivors, Martin Buchert, his Fijian wife and Lascar Joe were landed and the ships sailed to Sydney, passing the island of Vanikoro.
From there, Lascăr and his unit swung East, crossing the rivers Dniester, Bug, and Dnieper.