The Cavalli Islands are a small group of islands near
Whangaroa
Whangaroa is a settlement on Whangaroa Harbour in the Far North District of New Zealand. It is 8 km north-west of Kaeo and 35 km north-west of Kerikeri. The harbour is almost landlocked and is popular both as a fishing spot in its own ...
on Northland's East Coast in northern
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. They lie to the east of
Matauri Bay
Matauri Bay ( mi, Mātauri) is a bay in New Zealand, situated 30 km north of Kerikeri, in Whangaroa county, just north of the Bay of Islands. It has over a kilometre of white sand and crystal clear water, making it a popular summer destina ...
on the mainland.
The group consists of the island of
Motukawanui (area ) and the smaller islets of
Motutapere,
Panaki,
Nukutaunga,
Haraweka,
Motuharakeke, and
Motukawaiti Islands. The main island is used as a nature reserve, and some of the smaller islands are privately owned.
The Cavallis were so named by
Captain James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...
on 27 December 1769 during his first voyage of discovery. In his journal he recorded that some Māori "sold us some fish--Cavallys as they are called--which occasioned my giving the Islands the same name". Cook probably meant
trevally
The Carangidae are a family of ray-finned fish which includes the jacks, pompanos, jack mackerels, runners, and scads. It is the largest of the six families included within the order Carangiformes. Some authorities classify it as the only famil ...
which is abundant near the islands, known to the Māori as araara.
On 2 December 1987, the hull of the bombed
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
vessel ''
Rainbow Warrior'' was scuttled between Matauri Bay and the Cavalli Islands, to serve as a
dive
Diving most often refers to:
* Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water
* Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes
Diving or Dive may also refer to:
Sports
* Dive (American football), a ...
wreck and fish sanctuary.
See also
*
List of islands of New Zealand
New Zealand consists of more than six hundred islands, mainly remnants of a larger land mass now beneath the sea. New Zealand is the seventh-largest island nation on earth, and the third-largest located entirely in the Southern Hemisphere. T ...
References
External links
Photograph of the islands from Matauri Bay
Far North District
Islands of the Northland Region
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