Wrecks 1 - 22 in the Garden Island Ships' Graveyard

In December 2025, I attempted to photograph each wreck in the Garden Island Ships' Graveyard in the North Arm of the Port River. My aim was to be able to capture the current state of each individual wreck. Separating the wrecks from each other, however, can be tricky at best. I thought that, if I just took one photo of each wreck that I came across, I would achive my aim. Putting that into practice was harder than it sounds, especially when it came to attempting to identify each of my photos. I cannot claim to have been able to identify each wreck accurately. There are quite likely some discrepancies with my identifications, but it is the best that I could do. Let us see how it turned out.

The first photo taken features the site of some of the artefacts from the Seminole: -

The Seminole was a woodsen-hulled, three-masted barque of 1511 gross tons. It was built in 1865.

These next two photos are my attempts to photograph the Seminole wreck site, although the wreck is completely submerged : -

I had another go at photographing the Seminole wreck site on my return: -

I was also able to photograph some of the artefacts from the Seminole again on my return: -

The Sunbeam wreck and boiler came next: -

The Sunbeam  was an iron-hulled, three-masted barque of 443 tons gross and built in 1857.

Next came the 'Unidentified Wooden Barge': -

The 'Unidentified Wooden Barge' was followed by the 'Unidentified Hopper Barge/Dredge' (behind the 'Unidentified Wooden Barge') : -

It was followed by the Killarney and its boiler: -

The Killarney was a wooden-hulled screw steamer built circa. 1910.

I photographed the Enterprise after the Killarney: -

The Enterprise was an iron-hulled screw steamer  of 36 tons gross built in 1868.

This 'Unidentified Iron Pontoon' (next to the Lady Daly) came next: -

The Lady Daly should be the next wreck on the list, but I seem to have jumped to what I am calling the Gem in these next three photos: -

The Gem was a composite-hulled paddle steamer of 145 tons gross and built in 1868.

The Sarnia is behind the Gem. I am suggesting that both of these two photos are of the Sarnia: -

The Sarnia was a composite-hulled dredge of 180 tons gross built in 1878.

The Moe comes next: -

The Moe was an iron-hulled three-masted barque of 765 tons gross built in 1876.

Next was another 'Unidentified Iron Pontoon' which sits on top of the Moe: -

The 'Unidentified Iron Pontoon' was placed on top of the Moe to prevent it from drifting any more: -

I believe that I photographed the Grace Darling in these next two photos: -

The Grace Darling was a steel-hulled screw steamer of 622 tons gross buiolt in 1907.

The next wreck was the Flinders: -

The Flinders was an iron-hulled screw steamer of 948 tons gross built in 1878.

The Juno wreck came next: -

The Juno was asteel-hulled screw steamer of 241 tons gross built in 1903.

Next wreck was the Mangana: -

The Mangana was an iron-hulled screw steamer of 752 tons gross built in 1876. 

The Garthneill wreck came next: -

The Garthneill was a steel-hulled, three masted barque of 1470 tons gross built in 1895.

The Glaucus wreck was next: -

The Glaucus was an iron-hulled screw steamer of 1363 tons gross built in 1878.

These next two photos feature the 'Unidentified Iron Dredge': -

I didn't know just what this last item was at all: -

I was not intending to include the Santiago and Dorothy H Sterling in this exercise where I aimed to separate the jumble of wrecks in the main two groups.

I missed one of the pontoons on the way, so I photographed it on my return: -

I think that this pontoon is the one next to the Flinders.

I photographed some of the wrecks during my return, but I was losing my way a little by then. I have, however, identified this wreck as the Glaucus: -

These next four photos show some 'group' shots of some of the wrecks: -

I now had to leave my kayak to search in the mangroves for the Thomas and Annie wreck: -

Although I continued to take a few more photographs, I had completed my aims at this stage. I had hoped that I had managed to document each of the wrecks, pontoons and boilers in the main two groups (the main accumulation) of wrecks in the graveyard. The one obvious omission was that of the Lady Daly, something that I hope to be able to rectify another time.