Gijs and Ijsbrand van den Kerkhoven was son of a ziekentrooster employed by the VOC, Simon van den

Kerkhoven. They planned to go back to the Netherland because Simon wanted his sons to get better
education and job opportunity. They departed from Batavia with the ship Aernhem on December 1661.
In the middle of Indian Ocean, their ship was caught in storm and sunken. Initially, Simon wanted to stay
in the ship and believed that they had better chance of survival by doing so. He thought that boarding
the lifeboat would lead to miserable fate. It was Gijs’ suggestion that they must board the lifeboat in
order to survive. Gijs claimed that God told him the idea. Fortunately, the Kerkhoven family managed to
escape death by boarding the lifeboat.

The lifeboat was crowded and overloaded. It was supposed to contain around thirty people but there
were more than a hundred survivors boarded the lifeboat. Being overloaded and with not enough
provision, a commotion occurred in the boat. There were some people who suggested to throw people
out of the boat in order to save food. Eventually, there were four unlucky persons who were thrown out
of boat alive. Gijs, Ijsbrand and their father survived all of that. Also boarded on this boat Hendrik
Terhorst, a boy around the same age as Gijs. After enduring nine days with barely a provision, they
arrived at Mauritius island.

Upon their arrival in Mauritius, Gijs and Ijsbrand were exhausted and stayed close to their father.
Initally, they only eat grass and when they got stronger they followed the other survivors, hunting
animals and fishing. Over time, Gijs and Ijsbrand were getting better and better at fishing and hunting.
They also built their own hut and bed. The boys saw their experience in Mauritius as great and exciting
adventure, but their father did not see it that way. He regarded it as bad example for his sons, because it
resembles a lazy and indecent life.

He did not want his sons to live that way, so upon the arrival of an English ship he asked them to bring
him and his sons aboard. They sailed with the English ship to Madagascar. Then, from Madagascar, they
boarded another ship to India. From India, they boarded yet another ship to Batavia. They arrived in
Batavia on 2 November 1662, almost a year after they departed from Batavia with Aernhem. Hendrik
Terhorst had left Mauritius earlier with the sailing master of Aernhem and other surviving VOC officers
and arrived in Batavia by a few weeks earlier. There is possibility that Gijs and Ijsbrand met Hendrik
Terhorst in Batavia before they went back to the Netherland.