Its a small world. Chatting over a coffee at the beach with a nearby neighbor the conversation turned to sailing ships. He told me his (great?) grandfather, John Campbell Stuart, built a famous Aussie vessel ..the Royal Tar.. at Nambucca Heads. She was a 598 ton barque which transported 500-odd Australians in1893 to Paraguay in South America in two trips to establish New Australia, a utopian colony. The colony eventually split and failed but Mary Cameron , later to be Dame Mary Gilmore, was one of the colonists. My friend was a bit gobsmacked when I told him Id discovered her wreck back in 1969 on Shearer Rock , a sub-surface pinnacle in NZs Hauraki Gulf , a discovery which started a life-long interest in diving wrecks.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 02:42:59 +0000
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