Another La Perouse Mystery Solved?

A FTER the French navigator La Perouse sailed from Sydney early in March, 1788, in his ships Boussole and Astrolabe to continue his exploration of the South Pacific, where did he go?

It is known that both his ships were wrecked on the reef at Vanikoro, in the Santa Cruz group of the Solomons, and that none of his men was seen again by Europeans.

But where did he go before that?

In one of his last letters home to Paris from Botany Bay, La Perouse said that he intended to visit Tonga and New Caledonia before heading for home. But Pacific historians have never been able to establish whether he did, in fact, visit either of those places before his ships came to grief at Vanikoro.

Now, however, the French Navy believes it has found proof that the celebrated navigator did at least visit New Caledonia.

Several weeks ago, the French naval vessel L’Orientaise paid a visit to Vanikoro, where divers recovered a number of coloured stones from the wreck of the Boussole, which Vila’s handyman Reece Discombe discovered several years ago.

The stones are thought to have been from a collection which La Perouse’s scientists were making in the Pacific. An analysis of the stones in Paris appears to indicate that they came from New Caledonia.