Our expedition was 12 months in the planning, and took place over 10 days in January 2017. Not-for-profit organisation The Silentworld Foundation collaborated with the Australian National Maritime Museum to send eight guest researchers and eight crew members to find lost clues to Australasia’s maritime history.

The five maritime archaeologists on board Silentworld had zeroed in on Kenn Reefs, which were discovered on 3 April 1824 by Alexander Kenn, master of the ship William Shand during a passage from Sydney to Batavia (modern-day Jakarta).

The reef complex falls within the oft-travelled ‘Outer Route,’ a seaway used by 19^th-century mariners to avoid the Great Barrier Reef when travelling to and from Australia’s east coast. They sit off the continental shelf beyond the Reef, 280 nautical miles northeast of the Queensland town of Gladstone.

According to primary archival sources, at least eight vessels were lost on Kenn Reefs during the 19th century. One of them was Bona Vista, a wooden, two-masted brig, owned by Robert Towns. On a voyage from Sydney to Mauritius via Torres Strait, the brig was wrecked on Kenn Reefs on either 17 or 18 March 1828. Captain Robert Towns, passenger Thomas Underwood, and the crew of the brig spent several weeks on the reef waiting to be rescued.