Turtle Dove Shoal

Turtle Dove Shoal is a dangerous shoal about three kilometres wide,cite book | first = Byron | last = Heath | year = 2005 | title = Discovering the Great South Land | publisher = Rosenberg Publishing | location = Dural, New South Wales | isbn = 1877058319] located at coord|29|25'|S|114|12|E|display=inline,title|scale:25000,Gazetteer of Australia | name = Turtle Dove Shoal | id = 1412] in the Indian Ocean about fifty kilometres south of the Houtman Abrolhos, off the coast of Western Australia.

The shoal was first charted on a 1627 map by Hessel Gerritsz, where it was labelled as the "Tortelduyff" rocks. The name is thought to signify that the shoal was first discovered by the ship "Tortelduif", which is recorded as having arrived at Batavia on 21 June 1623.cite book | first = Jan Ernst | last = Heeres | year = 1899 | title = The part borne by the Dutch in the discovery of Australia 1606-1765 | location = London | publisher = Luzac & co. | edition = [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0501231h.html Project Gutenberg of Australia edition] ] It was originally laid down in latitude 29° 11' S, and as a result later voyages failed to locate it. In his 1825 "Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia", Phillip Parker King suggested that they were merely the southernmost reef of the Houtman Abrolhos.cite book | first = Phillip Parker | last = King | title = Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 2 | location = London | publisher = John Murray | edition = [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12046 Project Gutenberg edition] ] In 1846, John Lort Stokes took the same position: quote|"... [A] t noon we were in lat. 29° 11' S., on the position assigned to a reef called the Turtle Dove. From the masthead I could see nothing indicating a shoal. Captain King passed near this position, and also remarks not seeing it. The Colonial schooner Champion, in beating to the southward, has passed over and near its assigned position, and I think we may fairly infer that there is no such reef as the Turtle Dove, and that probably it originated from the south end of the Abrolhos reef, ten miles N.N.W. of it, being seen."cite book | first = John Lort |last = Stokes | year = 1846 | title = "Discoveries in Australia", Volume 2 | location = London | publisher = T and W. Boone]

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