Cervantes 1844
The Cervantes was built in 1836 in Bathe, and originally registered to the port of Maine in New York. North American whaling ships of that era would travel the world's oceans to quech industry's thirst for whale oil. The Cervantes was a 28 metre, 232 ton barque on its second voyage to Western Australia from New London when it was lost south of Jurien Bay. It had been whaling in Geographe Bay prior to its loss without much success. Four months later while off the midwest coast, the Cervantes was anchored up with the crew fishing when a gale blew in, before the crew could set sail and beat the vessel out to sea the barque went aground on the sandbar, could not be freed and was deemed lost and put up for salvage.
(Sourced from p53 "A Windswept Coast" P & J Worsley & D. Totty)
GPS: S 30° 30.802'
E 115° 03.000'
Location: Cervantes Island
Site depth: 3 metres
Divable conditions: protected from swell, best dived in light winds
Visibilty: 1-10 metres
Vessel: American Whaler
Construction: Timber
Wreck event: Went aground 1844
Although the site is small and located on the sand flats, it was a interesting site and well preserved for an almost 200 year old timber wreck. The wreck consists of the lower portion of the hull sitting upright on a the sand, the exposed timber keel and scantlings spread across the site still intact and in some areas coper nails still protrude from the timber. At certain times of the year the surrounding sand flats have an abundance of sand worms that protrude from the sea floor.
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The site can only be accessed by boat, with the closest launching site at the beach launching site in Cervantes foreshore on the north side of Thirty point. The Cervantes lies 900 metres north by north-east of Cervenates Island and can be reached withing minutes of launching.
The below photogrammetry model was captured in March 2024. It shows the site well exposed. This was the second visit to the site to record photogrammetry. The first inspection and model of the site in 2015 showed very little of the site exposed above the seafloor. The model can be viewed in better quality at the Diving Western Australia's Shipwrecks sketchfab account at www.sketchfab.com/divingwawrecks/models