After clearing Bab el Mandeb in late spring or late summer, the mariner headed east on the following wind. If his goal was the Indus basin (in present-day Pakistan), he might steer north, and if he was heading to the Malabar Coast in southwestern India, he might steer south. Midsummer, when storms were the fiercest, was generally avoided, and the Malabar route held the additional risk of passing south of the subcontinent, usually a fatal mistake. The return journey on the cool and relatively calm northeast monsoon was safer; missing the Bab el Mandeb by even a wide margin to the north or south
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