Pelsaert Island
| Pelsaert Island | ||
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| Waters | Indian Ocean | |
| Archipelago | Pelsaert Islands ( Houtman Abrolhos Archipelago ) | |
| Geographical location | 28 ° 56 ′ S , 113 ° 59 ′ E | |
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| length | 11.5 km | |
| width | 200 m | |
| surface | 1.56 km² | |
| Highest elevation | 5 m | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
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Pelsaert Island , also known as Pelsart Island , is located in the Indian Ocean around 60 km southwest of the western Australian coastal town of Geraldton . The approximately 1.56 km² island belongs to Australia and is the largest of the Pelsaert Islands ( Pelsaert Group ), the southernmost archipelago in the Houtman-Abrolhos Archipelago .
geography
The elongated and consistently flat island forms the eastern reef rim of the Pelsaert Group and extends from northeast to south over a length of 11 km, but is on average barely 150 meters wide. Only the 1.5 km long southern section has a maximum width of 500 m. Immediately in front of the southern tip is the tiny Jon Jim Island , the southernmost island of the Houtman-Abrolhos Archipelago.
history
The name of the island, which was discovered at the end of the 16th century, was given in honor of François Pelsaert , the commander of the Dutch merchant ship Batavia, which sank in 1629 off the reefs of the Wallabi Islands about 10 km to the north . After the Batavia stranded , Pelsaert sailed with a few sailors in a simple lifeboat as far as Jakarta and later returned to the site of the accident to rescue the survivors of the accident. Due to a bloody mutiny in the meantime , however, he found only a few survivors.
use
The island is uninhabited. However, there has been an automatic beacon on a 21 m high steel mast near the south coast since 1974 .