Janet - Rottnest Island snorkelling

The Janet was a three-masted wooden schooner of 211 tons, built of jarrah by James Storey in 1878 and, at the time, the largest vessel ever built at Fremantle. She carried horses to Ceylon and brought back Indian produce, and on the night of 11 December 1887, inbound from Colombo with 2,000 sacks of Indian corn and Ceylon-made furniture, she struck Transit Reef in a gale without having called for a pilot.

She sank quickly but not deeply, and those aboard clung to the rigging until the pilot boat took them off. Her loss hurt the colony's horse trade, which passed to South Australian shippers. The wreck lies about 100 metres from the Macedon, scattered over a shallow honeycomb reef of caves and gullies.

Little of the ship is left: look for her two anchors, one lying on its side and one standing in a deep hole, and a small donkey boiler. The surrounding caves are full of fish, and the site lies inside the Kingston Sanctuary Zone. It is reached by boat.

• Experience level: Advanced
• Depth: 3-7 m
• Access: Boat needed: about 1.5 km offshore in the Kingston Reef sanctuary zone, off Bathurst Point. About 100 m from the Macedon; RIA's courtesy mooring on Kingston Reef serves the cluster. The reef rises to about 1 m below the surface, so it is dangerous in any swell.
• Historic Wreck (1887)
• Wooden Schooner
• Built in Fremantle
• Two Anchors
• Reef Caves
• Kingston Sanctuary Zone

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