Sorry Captain Cook .... move to the back of the line !

Captain Cook , .... move to the back of the line .

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It appears that the Dutch, Portuguese and French may have sailed and mapped the coastline around Stradbroke during the middle decades of the 16th century (Covacevich, Durbidge and McInnes, 1984 p. 81). There is also a well-
documented story that the wreck of a Spanish galleon lies in 18-Mile Swamp (Durbidge 1994 p. 71).
www.halenet.com.au...

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18 mile swamp/Swan Bay circled

In 1989 Greg Jefferys, Australian archaeologist and historian, began searching for the wreck of a supposed Spanish or Portuguese galleon on Stradbroke Island QLD Australia. He believes that he is getting very close to finding the remains of the wreck.
If found, this wreck could rewrite the history books of who "discovered" Eastern Australia.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f529d7b02eb7.jpg[/atsimg]
A typical Caravel

The mysterious remains of the ship have been reported in 18 Mile Swamp, generally situated near Swan Bay or Jumpinpin. Over that time there have been dozens of reported sightings but still the mystery remains.

Jeffrerys points to the discovery of a Sailors dirk, a brass walking stick head, a brass button, a sword blade, a fishing
weight and a corroded silver coin dated 1597 on Stradbroke Is as evidence of the existence of a Portuguese or Spanish Galleon buried in the 18 mile swamp.

Mr Jefferys claims he found the artefacts about 900m inland, suggesting the ship had gone aground hundreds of years
ago and the island's sand had built up around it.

Rumors of Aboriginals "trading" with Spanish Coins and the subsequent circulation of these coins in the community also adds weight to his theories.

Other testimony includes: Aborigines "knew of shipwreck" for centuries.

Frank Boyce, who lived there in the 1920s and '30s, was taken to the wreck by Aborigines after he saved the life of an
Aboriginal woman who was drowning. And claims they told him they had been taking the gold over the years to pay for
things in town.

Matthew Heeb discovered the burnt remains of a ship in the Eighteen Mile Swamp on Stradbroke Island in the Vicinity of Swan Bay at Jumpinpin in the early 1890's (before the Jumpinpin breakthrough). He described it to Isabel Hannah and the honorable George Appel (M.P.) as having a high poop and forecastle. It is likely that the remains pictured above represent exactly the type of ship that Heeb saw. Unfortunately since Heeb saw the shipwreck in the 1890's several fires have burnt over it. In !934 Jim Walker and two friends found the remains again, after a fire had burnt through the 18 Mile Swamp and during a drought.

The fires had reduced the "above swamp level" visible parts of the shipwreck to just its heavy timbers, though Jim
Walker could still confirm that the wreck was of a ship of about 90 to 100 feet in length (about 30 meters). This would
make it a ship of the size of Captain Cook's Endeavor or a ship of 350 to 400 tonnes. Small for a Manila galleon but large for a carrack or a Caravel.

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Picture taken within 18 mile swamp ( looking towards the sea )

When Heeb found the wreck in the 1890's he removed over a hundredweight (about 60 kilos) of copper fittings from the land locked shipwreck. In 1934 there were still various artifacts still to be found by scratching around in the hull. Using an axe Jim Walker took a "roved" bolt out of one of the ship's heavy timbers; Dr Harold "Boy" Young scratched around in the remains of the burnt out hull and found the fine dirk with an antler handle (mentioned above).

Source: www.stradbrokeislandgalleon.com...
www.stradbrokeislandgalleon.com...
www.unexplainedaustralia.com...
www.stradbrokeislandgalleon.com...
en.wikipedia.org...
humpybong.blogspot.com...

Bits of that don't add up. Gold wouldn't be of value to the Aborigines so why would they trade in it? Secondly, they were notoriously distant with Europeans, there are lots of examples of Cook's men turning up and they wouldn't have anything to do with them at all, not even try to communicate.

Interesting though!

reply to post by DeltaNine


Before the British colonization, there were 600-700 of the Aboriginal tribes.
wiki.answers.com...

Captain Cook probably encountered some of the unfriendlier ones ...

a sailor's dirk was found in the hull of the Stradbroke Island Galleon by Dr. Harold Young in 1934.

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The silver coin found in 2007 was found very close to the reported location of Dr Young's wreck site.
The coin was independently identified by a coin expert at Oxford University's Maritime Archeology
Institute as a British threepence. "The denomination is presumably threepence and the date is
apparently 1593. The other side bears the 'Virgin Queen's' left-facing portrait, name and titles,"
said the identification report.

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This Spanish or Portuguese brass walking stick head was found in an erosion gully in an old
Aboriginal campsite that was being cleared for a housing development on Lamb Island, Moreton Bay
about 4 kilometers west of where Dr. Young found the sailor's dirk on Stradbroke Island.

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The presence of this Spanish artifact in an Aboriginal midden gives credence to the oral history
of a relationship between the shipwreck survivors and the Stradbroke Island Aborigines. Interestingly
there is a history of the Stradbroke Island Aborigines helping shipwreck survivors.
www.stradbrokeislandgalleon.com...

.....the recollection of Aboriginal John Campbell, recorded by noted local historian, Thomas Welsby,
in the 1890s that Aboriginal oral histories recall that two white men, one named Juan, had long ago
walked into the Aboriginal camp near Flinder's Beach from their shipwreck on the ocean side of
North Stradbroke Island. Campbell further stated that the wreck was still visble in the 1890s and
had been positively identified as being made of European oak.
www.australiaoncd.com.au...

Oh don't get me wrong mate, I'm not doubting the story, it seems very plausible, I'm just kinda raising what I thought were a couple of sticking points

reply to post by radarloveguy


Great yarn...S&F for this. I'd love to be in on the dig.

reply to post by radarloveguy
Hiya RLG. I flagged your OP yesterday for being slightly off the beaten track in this forum. I like your style of posting and the title is worth a flag imao.

Looking into the accounts leaves a few questions about how poorly substantiated the claims are. There's plenty of hearsay and anecdotes and not a lot of hard science to support it all. Much of it boils down to this guy who once met an aborigine who told him there was a sunken shipwreck. The findings are inconclusive due to having no clear chain of evidence. They could have come from anywhere...at any time as far as I can tell.

Anecdotally, there are sure to be histories of ships being wrecked along the Australian coastline. The important point is to locate and date them. Until a decent archaeological dig is carried out in situ, these accounts will remain interesting and inconclusive.

To digress slightly, Captain Cook's moment of glory is one of the comedic incidents of human futility and arrogance. Picture the scene as a guy with a flag wades onto the beach of a land mass as vast as Australia.

He plants the flag and basically says, "We're having this!"

Originally posted by Kandinsky
The important point is to locate and date them. Until a decent archaeological dig is carried out in situ, these accounts will remain interesting and inconclusive.

Great opportunity for some testing of the area in question. Mind you, I know nothing of the archaeology of Oz, and this could be poo from the git-go. Still...I'd love to see more on this site.

reply to post by radarloveguy


Great thread brah, possible but i still think that China was the first to come to Australia but that's just me

Heres a picture that correlates with the theory that Cook wasn't the first to land on Australia or at least find it, it's a cave painting found on Flinders island

Same website but under the chinese category, which i think is still viable though.