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Joanna |
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The Story of the 'Joanna' Wreck |
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 Whenever
people walk Johanna Beach or look out from its cliffs they
are inevitably struck by the rugged beauty of this section of the
south west coast. Most people though, have no idea of how this place
came to be named. This is a short account of events that occurred
157 years ago, and how they gave rise to the name we know today.In the 1830's Portland Bay was settled, while Port Fairy was a collection of small stone and timber houses. All of these infant settlements relied on northern Tasmania for regular supplies in the early years, brought by small coastal vessels. In late September 1843, en route from Launceston to Port Fairy on its maiden voyage, the 22-ton schooner-rigged Joanna was fighting heavy seas and gale force winds as it tried to round Moonlight Head and avoid embayment between those high cliffs and an unlit Cape Otway. Large waves combined with broken hatches eventually caused the vessel to founder off the beach that would henceforth bear its name. One crewman drowned. The survivors next day decided to strike out for Geelong, which they eventually reached over a week later. After recovering and telling his story to the Geelong Advertiser, the master, Captain Irvine, with the aid of the ships Port Fairy owners returned to Launceston and organised a salvage attempt. (Now the story gets interesting) La Trobe's journal records how Irvine then returned with the salvage vessel to the wreck site, finding it still essentially intact but well ashore. In attempting to land the ships boat, two men drowned. Latrobe’s journal gives a detailed description of the events- including the interest in her cargo of brandy. It also underlines the early links between western Victoria and Tasmania. “Captain goes to Launceston and the comes back to Port Fairy, having arranged that a boat should be brought over from Launceston by one of the coasters, taken to the part of the coast where the vessel lay, and there dropped with its crew. He hoped to get the vessel off. Meanwhile the local Kooris had found the vessel, and had been helping themselves to the flour and sugar, which with cherry brandy etc composed the loading. The captain engages Mr Henry Allen to accompany him coast wise to the wreck, with his carpenter. They manage to reach it and find it in entire, though such a position as to preclude all hope of removal. Carter, Knowledge by name, blows off his fingers in igniting something at his powder flask. After seeing the wreck, they returned to Allen’s. The boat comes afterwards, is swamped coming ashore, two hands drown. The other two crawl their way without shoes to Allen’s and one goes on to Port Fairy, and gathers together by his description of the wreck and its contents, all the loose fellows in the neighbourhood, who determined to go down to the wreck in a body for Xmas jollification. They manage to get there by aid of the koori’s, cut the vessel in half, she breaks up one half drifts ashore and breaks up. They have here a six weeks “spell” drinking, quarrelling and fighting; half mad with the exposure, heat and debauchery. Every man but one becomes blind by the exposure and the fly bites. They returned to Allen’s led by the seeing man with a stick, “ Joanna was only a small vessel. The Joanna River in those days had two mouths- the western one closed around 1905. You can still trace its northern bank in the sand dunes near the eastern carpark. In 1970.s Joanna Beach became Johanna Beach when the Commonwealth Post Office took over from the Victorian Colonial Post Office in 1901 and the replacement Post Office stamp arrived with the extra “h” incorporated. The owner’s descendants still live in the Port Fairy area. Joanna Cassidy was the young daughter of the owner and lent her name to this little ship lost on a remote beach 157 years ago. |
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