The thrilling, little-known Australian island with a dark past

We’re in the middle of a lecture on the Batavia when we sail past Morning Reef, where the Dutch East India Company vessel was shipwrecked in 1629. We rush to the rails of Coral Geographer but there isn’t much to see, just a froth of white water breaking on shallows splattered with peacock colours.

Our lecturer, Steve Wenban, is a maritime history expert and has a way with words. He doesn’t sugarcoat the terror of a shipwreck for those enjoying an expedition cruise that is wending its way between myriad reefs and islands.

A Coral Expeditions tender at Beacon Island.

The Batavia rammed into Morning Reef, throwing sailors from their bunks. With a great groaning, it began to break up. A ship that runs aground is like a living creature, still struggling to sail forward, explains Wenban. The noise is tremendous as planks pop out, coral grinds the hull, and masts smash into the deck like felled trees.

About 300 of Batavia’s passengers and crew staggered onto little nearby islands. As Zodiacs take us to one of them – Beacon Island – our expedition team members keep a careful lookout above shallow reefs.

Maybe those shipwrecked saw the same things we do as they staggered onto Beacon Island: a sea lion that hobbles closer to investigate our arrival, and a huge Pacific gull glaring over a razor-sharp yellow beak. The island is home to fantastic bird life.

We’re in the Houtman Abrolhos islands off Geraldton in Western Australia, sailing with Coral Expeditions between Fremantle and Broome on Coral Geographer. The small expedition ship carries only 120 passengers, but is quite a bit bigger than the Batavia, and certainly more comfortable.

Houtman Abrolhos islands off Geraldton in Western Australia.

Coral Expeditions is a plucky little Aussie expedition company that favours remote destinations with unique environments and quirky histories. Few people ever get to Beacon Island, and yet it was the location of one of the most horrible episodes in early European Australia’s history. Being here is a thrill.

After the shipwreck, the Batavia’s captain took a small group of sailors off in a longboat to seek rescue and, in an amazing feat of navigation, reached Batavia (Jakarta) over a month later. A few of those left behind mutinied in an attempt to seize control of supplies and the ship’s money chests.

In the mayhem that followed, some 125 men, women and children were murdered. Only 122 of the original 321 passengers and crew were rescued, among them the mutineers, who were promptly tried and executed.

Beacon Island has been called the Island of Angry Ghosts. It has a certain beauty thanks to its white coral rubble and turquoise reef-patterned water, but its history lends it a haunted atmosphere.

Going places that bigger shops can’t – the Coral Geographer at sea.

Bones lie scattered about as if in mute reminder of the Batavia’s horrors, although they come from the sheep and goats once used as bait by cray fishermen. The fishermen and their shacks have been removed from what’s now considered a significant historical site.

We pick our way through a tangle of driftwood and low grey-green scrub tinged with yellow. Bleached coral clanks mournfully as we walk over it. The memorial that marks the Batavia tragedy is a modest coral cairn with a metal plaque. A pit in which mutiny ringleader Jeronimus Cornelisz was held prior to his execution gapes at the sky.

Other islands pepper the horizon, some of which also featured in the Batavia story. They’re white-and-blue dots that look like they belong in a tourist brochure. Later, we snorkel over reefs where fantastical fish swim, an odd enjoyment in a place with such a terrible story to tell.

The details

Coral Expeditions’ 12-night “Abrolhos Islands and the Coral Coast” itinerary between Fremantle and Broome (or the reverse) visits Beacon Island and other destinations including Ningaloo Reef, the Dampier Archipelago and Shark Bay. The next departures are February 27, August 1 and August 14, 2025. From $10,240 a person, twin share. Coral Expeditions also operates other Western Australian expedition cruises, such as a 12-night “Ningaloo & Rowley Shoals” cruise return from Broome, and a 10-night “Kimberley Cruise” between Broome and Darwin.
See coralexpeditions.com

The writer was a guest of Coral Expeditions.