The Vlissingen
Some 180 km south of Walvis Bay in a hidden bay in an inaccessible beach area rests a Dutch shipwreck for nearly 300 years now. Only now and then a rare expedition disturbs it at Meob Bay.
Those lucky enough who were there, report of some antique coins, called “doits” washed up on the beach. These copper coins bear the letters “VOC” ("Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie" – Unified East-Indian Company). The Dutch VOC existed from 1602 until 1799 and traded with India and Asia.
In 1652 it started a storage station at the Cape of Good Hope, today’s Cape Town. One of the VOC’s ships called “Vlissingen” probably capsized in 1747 at Meob Bay, according to Bruno Werz.
He wrote an article about it in the Journal of Namibian Studies, 2008. Werz led an expedition to Meob Bay. About 900 copper “doits” engraved with VOC were found there, many of them bearing their manufacturing year of 1746. Research proved they were coined that year in Middelburg, Netherlands.
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