QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Tangalooma

rufus king today The well-grounded 35m-long (115ft) stern section of the Liberty Ship was left to its fate on the shifting sands and treacherous seas of the South Passage. After the war, her remains were visible for many years as they rusted away; the author vividly recalls a Stradbroke-to-Moreton crossing inside the Bar in the early 1970s, watching seawards as breaking seas burst in explosions of white spray through the stark black ribs and frames of the wreck.

Moreton

The remains lie southwest-northeast, stern towards Moreton Bay, about 2km off the northern tip of North Stradbroke Island in about 8m (26ft) of water at high tide. Nothing of the Rufus King can be seen today, except from the air or underwater.

Island

Background image of the South Passage Bar between Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands has been overlaid with a faint map drawn from RAAF survey flights July 1942–May 1943. Worth noting is the erosion in the intervening 70 years

of Amity Point on North Stradbroke and Reeder’s Point on Moreton, in particular. The changes in banks and channels are stark, even in the few months’ difference between the main

Above: the Rufus King wreck seen from the air in rare and deceptively calm conditions; before her remains disappeared below water, one wild day fishermen were infamously rescued, clinging to the ribs of the wreck after their small runabout was swamped in rising seas. Google Earth Images Below: the wreck today is a fine-weather site for experienced divers only, this view taken inside one of the open cargo holds at a depth of 7m (22ft) in 2009. Image by Ian Banks

image and the enlargement.

5 fathoms (30ft / 9m)

5 fathoms

Low Water Mark (exposed banks, 1942-43)

(30ft / 9m)

Reeder’s Point

SOUTH PASSAGE

5 fathoms (30ft / 9m)

AREA enlargeD at right

Rous Channel

to Brisbane

‘Rufus King’ wreck

5 fathoms (30ft / 9m)

Amity Point

Low Water Mark (exposed banks, 1942-43)

Point Lookout

North Stradbroke Island

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