Beacon Island, also known as Batavia's graveyard, is an island on the eastern side of the

Wallabi Group The Wallabi Group is the northernmost group of islands in the Houtman Abrolhos off the western coast of Western Australia. it is from the Australian mainland, and about from the Easter Group. The group consists of a numbe ...

at the northern end of the

Houtman Abrolhos The Houtman Abrolhos (often called the Abrolhos Islands) is a chain of 122 islands and associated coral reefs, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia, about west of Geraldton, Western Australia. It is the southernmost true coral ...

, in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

, off the coast of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

Description

The J-shaped

coral island A coral island is a type of island formed from coral detritus and associated organic material. It occurs in tropical and sub-tropical areas, typically as part of a coral reef which has grown to cover a far larger area under the sea. Ecosystem ...

has an area of , length of approximately , with approximately of shoreline. The island has a low elevation, mostly less than , and is part of the Morning Reef complex composed of coral shingle. The surface is mostly sandy but has some pockets of

guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...

and some exposed coral.

History

The island is best known as the location of the wreck and mutiny. ''Batavia'' was wrecked on Morning Reef in June 1629. Most of the 316 passengers and crew were washed ashore on the smaller islands on the eastern side of the Wallabi Group. The commander,

Francisco Pelsaert Francisco Pelsaert ( – September 1630) was a Dutch merchant who worked for the Dutch East India Company best known for his role as the commander of the . The ship ran aground in the Houtman Abrolhos, off the coastal regions of Western Aust ...

, and 47 other crew and passengers set off in one the longboats in search of water but ended up sailing to

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. When Pelsaert returned to the Abrolhos he found that ''Batavia''s under-merchant,

Jeronimus Cornelisz Jeronimus Cornelisz (c. 1598 – 2 October 1629) was a Dutch apothecary and Dutch East India Company merchant who sailed aboard the merchant ship which foundered near the Australian mainland. Cornelisz then led one of the bloodiest mutinies i ...

, had recruited other men from the survivors and then killed 125 of the other survivors. The mutineers camped on Beacon Island, and many of the victims were buried there. The island, along with the rest of the Abrolhos, was likely visited by sealers and

miners through the 19th century. In 1877 survivors of the ''Hadda'' shipwreck lived on the island for five days.

Crayfish Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the clade Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. In some locations, they are also known as crawfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, rock lobsters, mu ...

erman arrived on the island sometime afterward and established several galvanised iron and asbestos shacks along with sheds for gear on four main sites. The first archaeological excavations were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, with the

Western Australian Museum The Western Australian Museum is a statutory authority within the Culture and the Arts Portfolio, established under the ''Museum Act 1969''. The museum has six main sites. The state museum, now known as WA Museum Boola Bardip, officially re-ope ...

conducting excavations in 1992. In 2014, buildings and structures were removed from the island to restore it to a state of wilderness as part of an effort to protect Batavia heritage. The island is on the National Heritage list due to it being the site to the ''Batavia'' shipwreck.

Birds

The island is part of the Houtman Abrolhos

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

, identified as such by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

because it supports large numbers of breeding seabirds. Birds that are found on the island include the

wedge-tailed shearwater The wedge-tailed shearwater (''Ardenna pacifica'') is a medium-large shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. It is one of the shearwater species that is sometimes referred to as a muttonbird, like the sooty shearwater of New Zealand and ...

, which nests on the island between November and May.

Notes

References

{{reflist Australian National Heritage List Batavia (1628 ship) Important Bird Areas of Western Australia Islands of the Houtman Abrolhos Wallabi Group