When was bass strait discovered

Frederick Valentich was flying a small aeroplane over the strait when he reported to personnel at a local airport that a strange object was buzzing his plane. He then claimed that the object had moved directly in front of his plane; the airport personnel then heard a metallic "scraping" sound, followed by silence.

Valentich and his plane subsequently vanished and neither Valentich nor his plane were ever seen again. Bass Strait is regularly crossed by sailing vessels, including during the annual Melbourne to Hobart Yacht Race.

The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race passes generally east of the strait but is affected by its weather conditions. Australian Olympic bronze medalist Michael Blackburn set a record in October when he crossed the strait in just over 13 hours in a Laser sailing dinghy.

Tammy van Wisse swam part of the strait in , from King Island to Apollo Bay in Victoria, a distance of about km in 17 hours and 46 minutes. Rod Harris, Ian and Peter Richards are credited with the first kayak crossing in Many sea kayakers have since made the crossing, usually by island hopping on the eastern side of the strait.

Andrew McAuley was the first person to cross Bass Strait non-stop in a sea kayak in He made two more crossings of Bass Strait before he died attempting to cross the Tasman Sea in February The first windsurfer crossing was in by Mark Paul and Les Tokolyi. Kitesurfers have also completed the crossing. Amphitrite on stamp commemorating completion of cable.

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Cite this article:. It flows on the full and change days about half-past twelve. The soundings are frequently irregular, which is perhaps occasioned by the cross-setting of the tide out of the two arms into the two outlets, and by the softness of the bottom, which is chiefly mud with a little sand; mud abounds so much that the greater part of the points are not approachable except towards the top of high water, and then at the risque of having your boat left until the next tide, for the mud runs out far and flat, and so soft that there is no walking the boat over it.

There are indeed in some places sand-shoals, and those tolerably hard, but even they tail off in mud. Accuracy, independent of its being altogether out of my reach, would, I believe, to anyone be the labour of months. The track of his whaleboat is shown, in part, in a chart by Flinders.

The land round Western Port is low but hilly, the hills rising as they recede, which gives it a pleasing appearance. Upon the borders of the harbour it is in general low and level. In the different places I landed I found the soil almost uniformly the same all round—a light brown mould free from sand, and the lowest lying grounds a kind of peaty earth.

There are many hundred acres of such sort of ground. The grass and ferns grow luxuriantly, and yet the country is but thinly and lightly timbered. The gum-tree, she and swamp oaks, are the most common trees.

Little patches of brush are to be met with everywhere, but there are upon the east side several thick brushes of some miles in extent, whose soil is a rich vegetable mould. In front of these brushes are salt marshes. The island is but barren. Starved shrubs grow upon the higher land, and the lower is nothing better than sandy brushes, at this time dried up. We had great difficulty in finding good water, and even that which was brackish was very scarce. There is, however, every appearance of an unusual drought in the country.

The head of the winding creek on the east side, which I have marked with Fresh Water in the sketch, was the only place we could procure it at free from a brackish taste. At half-tide there is water enough over the shoals for the largest boat, and within the creek there is at all times a sufficient depth. There seem to be but few natives about this place.

We saw only four, and that the day after we came in, but they were so shy we could not get near them. There are paths and other marks of them in several places, but none very recent. The want of water has perhaps driven them further back upon the higher lands. We saw a few of the brush kangaroo, the wallabah, but no other kind.

Swans may be seen here, hundreds in a flight, and ducks, a small but excellent kind, fly in thousands. There is an abundance of most kinds of wild fowl. The eastern entrance of this place has so conspicuous an appearance by the gap it makes in the land that it cannot fail of being known by any one coming from the eastward. The point of the island, which is a high cape, like a snapper's head, forms an island. The entrance appears like a passage between it and the main.

As the seventh week had now expired, our reduced stock of provisions forced us to turn our heads homewards. We did it very reluctantly. Thursday, 18th. By 10 the fresh of wind had increased to a gale, and the sea, which we found running rather high when we came out, now began to be very troublesome. A long S. This long swell we had observed in going to the westward, when for several days before that time, and almost ever since, the winds had been northerly, and at times very strong.

At noon heavy squalls, with rain, fed the gale. Friday, 19th. Monday, 22nd. At 10, after having variable light airs all the morning, it set in and blew strong at S. Seeing a kind of bend in one of the islands about a quarter of a mile from the main, which was a weather shore with this wind, we went in there and landed to collect a stock of petrels for our homeward supply. Tuesday, 23rd. I therefore resolved upon staying there all night, that we might be able at once to procure what birds we could salt down, and then be ready for the first smooth day, and afterwards make the best of our way to the northward.

The sea now rolled in between the island and the main, and our station was no longer tenable, so at daybreak we stood over towards the west side of the bight for the little beach we had last left, for there was too much surf going upon the beaches under Furneaux's Land to put the boat on shore unless in a case of extremity.

At 8 laid the boat upon the beach on the west side, having passed through a sea that for the very few hours it had been blowing was incredibly high. Wednesday, 24th. Thursday, 25th. Friday, 26th. By 11, the wind blowing up fresh at west, bore away round Furneaux's Land. Saturday, 27th.

It appears to lie about 8 or 9 miles to the northward. Sunday, 28th. Monday, 29th. This island is the northernmost of four that lie about S. It is about a mile and a half in circuit, and is of a very moderate height, sloping up gradually to a hill in the middle. There is neither tree or shrub upon it, but a great deal of thick tufted grass, in which the seals have everywhere made paths and the petrels have burrowed.

The number of seals was by no means equal to what we had been led to expect. It is certain, however, that great numbers had been destroyed, and probably more frightened; but as the pups seem now to be nearly full-grown, many of the seals may have gone off to sea, as is their custom when the pupping-time is past.

From the quantity I saw I have every reason to believe that a speculation upon a small scale might be carried on with advantage. There are seals more or less upon all the islands on both sides of Furneaux's Land; but as some are not so well formed for their landing as others they are less frequented by them.

Any island to be a true seal island must have in some one part of it a landing-place of easy access, on account of the pups. At 10 landed there. It is shut from all but the winds from E. There is plenty of fresh water, and wood enough at hand to boil down any quantity of blubber they might procure.

Tuesday, 30th. The water in the cove keeps smooth. This gale gave me an opportunity of examining the surface of Furneaux's Land. Its firmness and vast durability make it well worthy of being, what there is great reason to believe it is, the boundary point of a large strait and a corner-stone of this great island, New Holland.

It is joined to the mainland by a low neck of sand, which is nearly divided by a lagoon that runs in on the west side of it, and by a large shoal inlet on the east. Notwithstanding the heighth of this land is not such as would be by seamen reckoned at all remarkable, yet it appears strikingly so by being contrasted with the low sandy land that joins to it, and by having no high land in its neighbourhood except a single ridge of mountains to the northward of from 12 or 18 miles in length, which, getting up at some considerable distance from the sea, comes down southing in a direction for Furneaux's Land, and slopes away gradually to a termination, leaving about 12 or 16 miles of this sand and saltwater inlets between them.

There is but little soil upon Furneaux's Land; it is chiefly barren; the rocks are hidden indeed by brush and dwarf gums and other smaller vegetation, which gives a deceitful appearance of fertility to the eye of a distant observer. The myrtle, so common about Sydney, grows not only here, but also in several places to the westward, much larger than it is ever seen to the northward. The brushes are generally formed of it entirely. The tide of flood runs along from the northward along the east side of Furneaux's Land, and then sweeps to the westward round the end of it with considerable rapidity.

The day on which we more particularly had occasion to observe it was the eighth of the moon's age, and it then ran full 2 knots or more. The ebb tide sets principally off to the eastward. It rises on the east side about Sealers' Cove 10 or 11 feet, and flows full, and changes about 10 o'clock.

Whenever it shall be decided that the opening between this and Van Dieman's Land is a strait, this rapidity of tide, and that long S. Friday, February 2nd. The gale having broken up, and the wind coming to the westward, we coasted along the east side of Furneaux's Land, and at night came to within the entrance of a shoal inlet that we found to run in by the north end of it. Off the mouth lies a long breaking shoal, on the west side of which is the channel. A vessel that could lay in this draught of water might be completely landlocked on the south side under Furneaux's Land, from off which there are two or three large runs of most excellent water.

The tide here rises 8 or 9 feet, and what is remarkable, flows full and changes a full hour later than it does in Sealers' Cove, notwithstanding the flood comes from the northward. I was at a loss to account for this circumstance until I became acquainted with the lay of the coast to the eastward and northward of the inlet, when it appeared to be owing to its being situated in the bottom of a bight, across and not directly into which the grand shoot of the flood passes in its way from the long beach down upon Furneaux's Land.

As a general remark, I would observe that the flood tide, after ranging along from the eastward by the side of the long beach, leaves it at that part where the beach ceases to trend in an N. Friday, 9th. We went out of the inlet and steered along shore about E.

At the distance of 5 miles we passed the mouth of an inlet out of which the tide was setting. It had the appearance of being of the same shoal kind as that we were come out of. We were too short of provisions to go up it and risque the loss of the wind we had for several days been anxiously waiting for.

A large half-moon shoal stretches to the N. These inlets and lagoon were the bights we then observed, but did not examine. Saturday, 10th. At sunset it became more moderate. At 9 we hauled out E. At daybreak the beach was distant 2 miles.

It trended E. The wind having died away gradually, a short interval of calm succeeded. At 10 it set in strong from the E. Sunday, 11th.

Some natives came to us with very little hesitation, the usual signs of friendship being offered and accepted on each side. By their manner we concluded they had never seen white people before, or ever heard of them. In the evening the wind, at E. As with this wind the surf must very speedily rise so much that it would be impossible for us to leave the beach until some time after the gale was over, we determined to try if the boat could get through it.

There was no time to be lost; therefore we immediately dragged the boat down to the water's edge, got everything into her, and, as soon as we had light enough to see what we were about, launched her into it, and succeeded in getting her out; then bore away to the northward.

At noon the Ram Head was just come in sight. Monday, 12th. Thursday, 15th. We immediately stood to the northward with it.

At 10 passed Cape Howe. Friday, 16th. I employed myself until sunset in examining the country round, and had the mortification to find that the same sterility we had almost everywhere witnessed upon the coast still attended it. The figure of the land, especially on the N. The hills are stony; the sides of the gullies between them and some little low land at their foot is well covered with soil, in patches, at the expence of the higher ground.

The natural productions are the general ones of the country. The nautical advantages of this bay, notwithstanding the anchorage is but small, seem to be superior to any we have been in. It may be known by a red point on the south side of the peculiar bluish hue of a drunkard's nose. Mount Dromedary bears north-easterly about 8 or 10 leagues. I had taken a sketch of the bay as we sailed it round on our way to the southward; therefore, as there was little else to be done and our stock of provisions was now become very short, it was absolutely necessary to use every moment of fair wind.

At sunset we bore away to the northward with the strong breeze that yet continued at S. Mount Dromedary bore west 6 or 7 miles. Squally and a heavy sea. At 10 passed Bateman Bay, and about noon landed upon the small island 7 or 8 miles to the northward of it, where we had observed a pole, like a flagstaff, on the 14th December. Saturday, 17th. The island, however, is too near to the main, and too much frequented by natives for any shipwrecked persons to have remained long upon it.

The wind having crawled round so far to the eastward that we could not weather the outermost part of the land to the northward, we stayed here the night. Sunday, 18th. Tuesday, 20th. Originally this strait was known as Bass's Straits but was later changed to Bass Strait. The existence of the strait was predicted in Bass Strait is twice as rough as the English Channel and also twice as wide.

It failed completely in There are several natural gas and oil fields in Bass Strait. They are located in the Gippsland Basin. The majority of the oil and gas fields in Bass Strait were discovered in the s in depths of roughly 70 meters. There are two passenger ferries that cross Bass Strait but the fastest method is by air.