Archaeologists at the Western Australian Maritime museum had known about the possible existence of a 19th century, Portuguese ship that had wrecked near Point Cloates peninsula on the north west coast since the 1980’s. A reference in the India Directory of 1841 describes how a vessel of Portuguese registry foundered on a reef whilst on route from Lisbon to the Portuguese trading post at Macao in 1816.

The museum had little to go on and a large search area. Then, in 1986 a Portuguese document surfaced that was the ships journal of Luis Antonio Da Silva Beltrao. Beltrao, and his ship the brigantine Emilia were commissioned by the Governor of Macau in 1817 to search for the missing vessel Correo ( correio) de Azia ( Asia Mail) and to map the coastline. The vessel was a dispatch ship loaded with supplies and silver coins to assist the trading post. Captain Beltrao had along with him members of the Correo de Azia crew whom eventually guided his ship to the exact location of the shipwreck. However, although Beltrao logged the longitude, the latitude of the shipwreck was missing from his journal. Neither did Beltrao’s journal mention a salvage operation.

 Ningaloo Reef. Beautiful but treacherous to ancient mariners.

Subsequent attempts by the museums archaeologists to find the shipwreck failed. Like pieces of a jigsaw the second break through came in 1995. A member of the museum was sent to Lisbon were he discovered, at the Arquivo Historico Ultramarino, the detailed journal of Joao Joaquim de Freitas, the captain of the Correo de Azia. De Freitas journal described how a fire had started in the ships binnacle ( lighted by oil lamp) whilst the ship was traveling north west, skirting the coastline. At night and unable to keep its baring, the ship ran aground losing its rudder. As the ship began to sink the majority of the ships crew managed to escape in a launch, which was damaged, taking with them what supplies they could salvage. They put ashore by Exmouth Gulf coast where they carried out repairs to the damaged launch and searched inland for fresh water.

Believing the location to be inhospitable and void of supplies the Portuguese sailors put to sea and headed for the Straits of Allas. Fortunately the launch was spotted by the American merchant ship, the Caledonia, and the sailors were rescued.

With all the documented evidence gathered the museum now had a target search area which they investigated during the late 1990’s using a marine magnetometer. After further fruitless searches the museum contracted the help of Fugro Airborne Surveys. The company used a magnetometer on an aircraft which could survey a larger area, in much less time. It wasn’t long before two shipwrecks were discovered; one a mid nineteenth century wreck, the other, by the Ningaloo coast, was belived to be the Correo de Azia.

Archaeologists began diving on the wreck site in 2004 and their were expeditions until 2008, during which time they discovered a large number of artifacts. As was suspected the wreck site yielded hundreds of silver coins, some loose and others held together in concretion. The coins were minted in Mexico and had a date range of between 1789 and 1816. The dates of the coins and the information available for the shipwreck coincided, therefore it was determined that the wreck could be none other than the Correo de Azia. Two bronze cannons and an anchor were also discovered by the magnetometer. The artifacts may at some point be excavated and displayed at the Western Austarlian Maritime Museum.

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Images from flickr.com