Dirk Hartog, born into a Dutch seafaring…
1616 CE
Dirk Hartog, born into a Dutch seafaring family, had received his first ship's command at the age of thirty, and has spent several years engaged in successful trading ventures in the Baltic and Mediterranean seas.
Gaining employment with the Dutch East India Company (VOC), Hartog is appointed master of a ship (the Eendracht, meaning "Concord" or "Unity") in a fleet voyaging from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies.
Setting sail in January 1616 in the company of several other VOC ships, Hartog and the Eendracht had become separated from the others in a storm, and arrive independently at the Cape of Good Hope (later to become the site of Cape Town, South Africa).
Leaving here, Hartog sets off across the Indian Ocean for Batavia (present-day Jakarta), utilizing (or perhaps blown off course by) the strong westerly winds known as the "Roaring Forties" which had been earlier noted by the Dutch navigator Henderik Brouwer as a quicker route to Java.
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