Arrrgh, here be treasure me hearties!

There are rumors, speculation, legends and documented evidence that other nations sailed the waters of this great brown land long before Captain James Cook stumbled upon us and claimed it for Queen and country.

The Chinese and Japanese sailed our East coast. The Dutch explored our West and Southern Coasts. In 1642 Able Tasman, a Dutch explorer, mapped and named Anthoonij van Diemenslandt (Van Diemen's Land) now known as Tasmania. The Portuguese and Spanish may have also poked around. Terra Australis (Land of the South) appeared on European maps from the 15th to the 18th century. There are shipwrecks aplenty around our vast coastline.

The Stradbroke Island Spanish Galleon story is one of Australia’s most enduring historic shipwreck mysteries and, along side Victoria’s Mahogany Ship, is the most controversial as it may yet prove that the Spanish reached Australia long before Captain Cook. The shipwreck is situated in the 18 Mile Swamp on Stradbroke Island. The supposedly Spanish shipwreck has been causing controversy since the mid 19th Century when the first reports of a mysterious oak shipwreck in the swamp began to circulate amongst the people of the young colony of Moreton Bay.

The first recorded investigation of the Stradbroke Island shipwreck appears to have been in about 1860 by the Moreton Bay pilot and light keeper Mister Graham who found both the wreck and an ancient wood stocked anchor in the vicinity of Swan Bay at the south end of Stradbroke Island. He retrieved the anchor and had it on display at his home near Nerang for some years. His wife, who was of Aboriginal descent, recalled that the Aboriginal people had known of the shipwreck’s existence for a long time; this position is supported by a number of oral histories that tell of whites being shown the wreck by Stradbroke Island Aborigines.

The story that the shipwreck was of a Spanish Galleon in the Swamp of Stradbroke Island appears to have begun in the later 1880’s or early 1890’s, started either by two young Russell Island residents, John Willes and Ivan Bond, who found the remains of the shipwrecked “galleon” on the ocean side of Stradbroke Island in about 1886 or by Mathew Heeb, a timber getter and shipwright, who found the remains of ship with a “high poop and forecastle” in the 18 Mile Swamp near Swan Bay.

The discovery of a sailor's dirk, a brass walking stick head, a brass button, a sword blade, a fishing weight and a corroded silver coin dated 1597 on Stradbroke Island is presented as evidence of the existence of a Portuguese or Spanish Galleon buried in the 18 mile swamp.

Up until the mid 1930’s a number of people had found the mysterious shipwreck in the swamp on Stradbroke Island, often shown the location by Aborigines. Two well documented and successful expeditions to find the Stradbroke "galleon” occurred in 1934 after a huge fire burned through the Eighteen Mile Swamp from Swan Bay to Blue Lake and burnt the timbers of the wreck that were above ground level to a point where only the thickest of them remained. Since that fire it appears that only one person has seen the wreck. A member of a sand mining crew who saw it immediately after a fire burned through the Swamp in the late 1970’s.

History tells us that Captain Cook was the first European to reach the east coast of Australia and finding a pre-Cook shipwreck on Stradbroke Island would mean that all the history books would be wrong and have to be re-written.

Within the local history of Stradbroke Island there is a significant body of historic material that links the Stradbroke Island Galleon with members of the Aboriginal population of Stradbroke Island. There are also numerous stories which state that the Stradbroke Island Aborigines have had Spanish gold coins in their possession as well as other artifacts from the Spanish Galleon, some stories even state that certain Stradbroke Island Aborigines are custodians of the secret location of the galleon’s hidden treasure and that this knowledge is passed down carefully through the generations.

Is it a lost Portuguese or Spanish exploration ship, a caravel or carrack? Or is it the wreck a Mexican treasure galleon or a Manila Galleon, carrying millions of pesos in silver and gold coin, shipwrecked on the Queensland coast by some ancient storm now waiting in the 18 Mile Swamp to re-write maritime history?

Historic and archaeological evidence suggests this mysterious Queensland shipwreck is likely to be either Portuguese or Spanish vessel shipwrecked whilst exploring Queensland's coastline.

Now if you will excuse me while I find my metal detector and head off to Straddie.