On November 18th, 1497, Vasco da Gama reached the Cape of Good Hope.

Vasco da Gama was a naval commander whose expedition from Lisbon around the Cape of Good Hope to India resulted in Portuguese dominance in the Eastern spice trade. He was richly rewarded for discovering a navigable trade route that had been sought for nearly eighty years.

Known for the stormy weather and rough seas encountered there, the Cape lies at the convergence of warm currents from the Indian Ocean and cool currents from Antarctic waters. It is these dangerous waters that have made the the Cape of Good Hope perhaps best known in literary circles as the inspiration for the old sea legend of the Flying Dutchman.

Sailors in Holland long believed that a Dutch skipper named van Straaten was condemned as a penalty for his sins to sail for year after year through the seas around the Cape of Storms (an early name for the Cape of Good Hope). Crews returning to the Zudyer Zee (the northern coast of the Netherlands) after voyaging in this region used to declare that they had seen van Straaten’s mysterious craft and fled from it in terror. The legend is a very old one, although its exact date is not known. The story is found in Dutch, German and other folklore.

Vasco da Gama

PHOTO CAPTION: View of Cape of Good Hope, from Cape Point.

GOLDEN AGE HISTORY INSPIRED BY: “THE DEVIL’S RESCUE”  by L. Ron Hubbard.

“The Devil’s Rescue” is inspired by the old sea legend of the Flying Dutchman. One of the stories featured in the fantasy tale, The Crossroads. When the crew of a spectral old clipper ship rescues Lanson from his drifting lifeboat, he discovers that they are all faceless—except for the captain—and now his destiny lies in the roll of the dice . . . (read more…)

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