Two large anchors from the 1375-ton 3-masted iron barque Fiji have been set in concrete on Wreck Beach near Princetown and Port Campbell in Victoria since 1964.
(Source: “Shipwrecks along the Southern Coast” by GA Nayler)
Geoff Naylor’s book “Shipwrecks along the Southern Coast” (GA Nayler) revealed years ago (date unknown) that members of the Warrnambool Skindiving Club had mounted the anchors from the Fiji shipwreck on Wreck Beach.
Map showing Wreck Beach
According to the web page found at https://www.scubadivermag.com/i-set-fiji-anchor-reveals-91-year-old-diver/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-the-deco-stop-global-edition&fbclid=IwAR0hhxJf4piQ7Ug5sTQtgCzmzWaynio0YQJeBcqtTIus8Z3M4jvUOet3bMc, Scuba Diver Magazine on 2nd March 2024 reported that a 91-year-old former had revealed that he was one of the divers that had set the anchors on Wreck Beach: -
“An elderly diver in South Australia has revealed how an anchor from a famous shipwreck was turned into a well-known landmark exactly 60 years ago” (1964).
91-year-old Andrew Coffey, a former abalone diver, has now revealed, at least, how the ‘inverted’ anchor on Wreck Beach came to be there.
He was one of four divers who had dived the wreck of the Fiji in 1964, after which they decided to drag the anchor up onto the beach and set it up as a marker. They used gelignite to blow a hole in the rock and then set the anchor in place with cement. Coffey says that he is now the only one left out of the four divers involved.
(Source: "Wrecks and Relics" by Geoff Nayler, taken by the author)
According to https://www.scubadivermag.com/i-set-fiji-anchor-reveals-91-year-old-diver/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-the-deco-stop-global-edition&fbclid=IwAR0hhxJf4piQ7Ug5sTQtgCzmzWaynio0YQJeBcqtTIus8Z3M4jvUOet3bMc, “The three-masted barque Fiji had sailed from Hamburg in Germany to Melbourne in 1891 and, after 106 days at sea, was only a day away from her destination. She was carrying crates of liquor, pianos, dynamite and sewing machines among other cargo. Caught out by poor weather, a navigational error then resulted in the ship breaking up on rocks and sinking near Moonlight Head in south-west Victoria on 6 September. The wreck has just been added to the Victorian Heritage Register and a memorial to the 14 sailors and local rescuer Arthur Wilkinson who died was cleaned up. Eleven seamen survived the sinking.”
The barque Fiji foundering ashore near Moonlight Head in 1891 - taken by Jordan
(Source: Both "Wrecks and Relics" and “Shipwrecks along the Southern Coast”
by GA (Geoff ) Nayler)
Note the crew clinging to the bowsprit.