Four hundred and fifty years ago, there lived a man named Hendrick

Vanderdecken, a captain, a sailor, a man devoted to the sea. Captain

Vanderdecken lived in Amsterdam, in Holland, and for as many years as
he could remember, he had loved to be at sea. He knew that was where
he belonged, heart and soul, and he could not imagine his life anywhere
else.

One day Vanderdecken and his crew set off in their ship, the Flying
Dutchman. They were heading toward Batavia, a Dutch port in East
India, and their course was set. The journey would take many months, or
so they thought. They had no idea that this was a journey that would
never end.

After some time the ship reached the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of
southern Africa, and there, just as they were rounding the cape, a fierce
and unrelenting storm met the Flying Dutchman.

The waves rose higher than the deck itself, and the wind blew so
mightily, the sails were ripped to shreds. The crew, feeling the booms
ripped from their hands, watching the wind pound at the masts, cried to
their captain, "We must turn back!"

Many of the sailors were down on their knees, praying that something
might save them. "It's a warning that we shouldn't travel in this
direction," some of the sailors wailed, and this they believed. Others
cursed and swore and talked of mutiny, for their captain had a gleam in
his eye now, and they thought he might have gone mad.

"Sail on," Vanderdecken commanded.

"This is a warning to turn around," the sailors cried out, but
Vanderdecken believed he could weather any storm. He believed that he,
more than any other man, knew how to work the sea, how to steer his
ship always forward. And so he shouted, "Keep sailing!" over the gales.
"We will never give up!"

When lightning struck the deck, and raging currents ripped the keel from
beneath the ship's hull, many of the sailors screamed in terror and
pleaded with their captain to save them, but Vanderdecken was, by this
time, listening only to his own heart. "We won't give up, we'll sail for
eternity," he cried. "We shall sail until doomsday!"

People say the ship vanished from sight just moments after Captain
Vanderdecken uttered these words.

No one ever saw the sailors again, and no one ever saw Captain
Vanderdecken. That is, no one ever saw them on land. But some say the
captain did receive his punishment for his bravado. People say that he
will never rest, and it is also said that those who see the Flying Dutchman
-- and people do -- soon meet their own doom.