Point Cloates

Owing to the hidden trendings in the coast and the elbow that is formed in its outline where they first sighted land a difficult problem was presented to one sailor after another which none could solve.

This supposed island was discovered by Captain Nash (possibly an Englishman), in command of a Flemish ship, the "House of Austria," bound from Ostend to China.

The first Europeans to report seeing the point, in 1618, were Captain Lenaert Jacobszoon and supercargo Willem Janszoon, in the Dutch East India Company ship Mauritius.

On 1 May 1622, John Brooke, captain of Tryall claimed to have sighted an island in the area, while en route from England to Batavia (Jakarta), in the Dutch East Indies.

Nash was commanding a "Flemish" (probably Austrian Netherlands) ship, House of Austria, en route from Ostend to a port in China.

"[4] Uncertainty regarding the location and nature of the "island" may have contributed to the loss of the Portuguese Navy aviso Correio da Azia, bound for Macau in 1816.

[7] The ruins of the first Point Cloates Lighthouse, built in 1910, are listed in the Western Australian register of heritage places (2005).