Pigeon Island Anchorage is a passage through reef that runs along the northwest wide of Pigeon Island

Pigeon Island (Houtman Abrolhos)

Pigeon Island is a small island located need the middle of the Wallabi Group of the Houtman Abrolhos, an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. It is almost entirely given over to Western Rock Lobster fishers' camps, and as a result is far more disturbed than most other islands in the...

 in the Wallabi Group

Wallabi Group

The Wallabi Group is the northern-most group of islands in the Houtman Abrolhos. Nominally located at , it is 58 kilometres from the Australian mainland, and about 9 kilometres from the Easter Group....

 of the Houtman Abrolhos

Houtman Abrolhos

The Houtman Abrolhos is a chain of 122 islands, and associated coral reefs, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia. Nominally located at , it lies about eighty kilometres west of Geraldton, Western Australia...

, an archipelago

Archipelago

An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...

 off the coast of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. Pigeon Island is seasonally populated by a great many Western Rock Lobster

Western rock lobster

Panulirus cygnus is a species of spiny lobster , found off the west coast of Australia. Panulirus cygnus is the basis of Australia's most valuable fishery, making up 20% of value of Australia's total fishing industry, and is identified as the western rock lobster.-Description:The species has five...

 fishers, and Pigeon Island Anchorage represents the only safe approach to the island. It is thus heavily used as both a navigational passage and as an anchor

Anchor

An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, that is used to connect a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the vessel from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ancora, which itself comes from the Greek ἄγκυρα .Anchors can either be temporary or permanent...

age.

This passage was used by the Sardam

Sardam

The Sardam was a 17th century Dutch East India Company yacht . It was a small merchant vessel designed primarily for the inter-island trade in the East Indies....

in 1629. Arriving at the group in search of survivors of the Batavia

Batavia (ship)

Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company . It was built in Amsterdam in 1628, and armed with 24 cast iron cannons and a number of bronze guns. Batavia was shipwrecked on her maiden voyage, and was made famous by the subsequent mutiny and massacre that took place among the survivors...

shipwreck

Shipwreck

A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....

, it entered the passage, anchoring off Barge Rock in order to land a party of men on East Wallabi Island

East Wallabi Island

East Wallabi Island is an island in the Wallabi Group of the Houtman Abrolhos, located in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of mainland Australia.-History:East Wallabi Island played an important role in the story of the Batavia shipwreck and massacre...

.