West Australian Newspaper article by Carmelo Amalfi - titled Lost Ship Hunt.
A team of dives from the West Australian (WA) Maritime Museum and British armed services joined forces for an expedition to the Falkland Islands. On the agenda - locating the Uranie wreck and fostering links between WA and the Falklands through a shared maritime heritage. Discovered 181 years after the ship sank she has significant links with early exploration off Western Australia.

The 19th century corvette sailed to Shark Bay in 1818 on a voyage of scientific discovery. Some geological and biological specimens collected in Western Australia during de Freycinet's mission were lost when the ship sank. The shipwreck sailors were rescued after 10 weeks in Uranie Bay. Their camp appears to have been spread over about 800 metres along the foreshore and divided into a civilian area and a military section. Another man-made structure about 1 kilometre away opposite Long Island Farm could have been the armoury, which Uranie's captain Louis de Freycinets wife, Rose, said in her diaries was some way from their camp. It also could have been a stockade for the Port Jackson convicts de Freycinet brought on board in Sydney in 1819.

Local divers Dave Eynon and Ken Halliday first found indications of the wreck about 30 years ago but due to being pushed around by storms the search for the wreck by this team was a little unsuccessful at first as they had been searching in the wrong area for a few days east of an area off rocks nicknamed Dog Reef. They changed course and decided to search at the end of the rocks. 1 1/2 hours later found they discovered timbers, followed by the keel in 4.5 metres of water. Buried in sand, she lies with the bow facing the shore 200 metres away. No cannon and anchors were found so they think she was lightened and looted since sinking in 1820.  Copper fastenings, keel bolts, fire bricks, iron works & more timber frames also lie in the kelp-covered seabed of Uranie Bay, about 20 kilometres north-west of Stanley, the Falklands' capital.

Team leader Dr Mike McCarthy & his team will now begin to search for English explorer William Dampier's Roebuck on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.

Viv