The Life and Times of Gerrit de Waal

Gerrit de Waal's world is thrown into confusion when his seafaring father's ship mysteriously disappears in the Indian Ocean in 1694. He's eight years old and growing up in cosmopolitan Middelburg, Zeeland, during the Dutch Golden Age. How will he survive to adulthood?

At twenty-six, determined to find out what happened to his father, Gerrit signs on as senior carpenter aboard the Zuytdorp. He wants to trace his father's footsteps and see if he can be found. What if his ship was wrecked off the coast of Eendrachtsland? (Known to us as Western Australia.) Gerrit will do anything to see if the crew survived.

Brilliant glass technician Stefan Novak uses the notes, charts and sketches of his friend, celebrated Aboriginal Australian sculptor Lennard Currie, to write a novel based on Gerrit's life. Lennard has researched the de Waal family and believes that his family tree intertwines with theirs.