Dragon Island is a small privately owned island just outside
Harataonga Bay
Harataonga Bay is a coastal feature and area on the northeast coast of Great Barrier Island in New Zealand's Hauraki Gulf, approximately 51 nautical miles northeast of central Auckland. Most of the area is in the Harataonga Recreation Reserve, wit ...
, on the northeast coast of
Great Barrier Island
Great Barrier Island ( mi, Aotea) lies in the outer Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand, north-east of central Auckland. With an area of it is the sixth-largest island of New Zealand and fourth-largest in the main chain. Its highest point, Mount Hobson ...
, located to the northeast of
Auckland
Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...
, in New Zealand. The island provides Harataonga Bay with shelter from easterly and southeasterly winds by blocking the bay from Pacific storms. The island is in relatively calm water, sheltered by the larger
Rakitu Island
Rakitu Island, also known as Arid Island, is an uninhabited island off the northeast coast of Great Barrier Island in the Auckland Region of New Zealand. The island lies about off Whangapoua Beach, sheltering the bay of Whangapoua Creek.
Descr ...
to the north. It was once farmed but is now unpopulated and has reverted to scrub.
Dragon Island is also a name sometimes given (quixotically) to a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, a little more than one km wide at its greatest extent, and about 4 km long, located just off the southwestern point of the island of Majorca, approximately 210 km due east of Valencia, Spain. This island comprises the ''Parc Natural Sa Dragonera''.
[see Google Maps.] It is the island referred to as Dragon Island in chapter eight of the historical novel
Master and Commander
''Master and Commander'' is a 1969 nautical historical novel by the English author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1969 in the US and 1970 in the UK. The book proved to be the start of the 20-novel Aubrey–Maturin series, set largely in th ...
by
Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian, CBE (12 December 1914 – 2 January 2000), born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and cent ...
.
See also
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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. Th ...
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List of islands
This is a list of the lists of islands in the world grouped by country, by continent, by body of water
A body of water or waterbody (often spelled water body) is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another plan ...
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Desert island
A desert island, deserted island, or uninhabited island, is an island, islet or atoll that is not permanently populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often depicted in films or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereot ...
References
Uninhabited islands of New Zealand
Great Barrier Island
Islands of the Auckland Region
Private islands of New Zealand
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