Gold treasure, an engraved turtle shell and the shipwreck that went missing

How Peter accidentally discovered the SS Gothenburg and 'all the bits of a great shipwreck story' Sun 5 Jul 2026 at 7:01am It was 1967 and Peter Rubiolo was spearfishing with two friends off the Queensland coast in a small dinghy when the trio noticed something unusual protruding from the water. "We'd fished there many times and there was nothing sticking out of the water," the Home Hill resident said. "When we hit it with the spear, steel rings a certain way, we realised it was a wreck." The startling noise unlocked a nearly century-old mystery of a tragic maritime disaster, sunken treasure and a peculiar, inscribed turtle shell. "We weren't out looking for it. We just happened to be there," Mr Rubiolo said. With no name on the hull of the wreckage, the only identifiable feature was an unusual arrow on the porthole. "When you see the wreck it's not a wreck like in the Hollywood movies where you open the door, swim in and swim back out again,"Mr Rubiolo said. "All the wooden work is gone. Only the shape of the ship is there." Mr Rubiolo later recovered the porthole and took it to Brisbane, more than 1,300 kilometres away, where a shipwreck historian identified the broad arrow and connected it to a government ship. The spearfishermen had uncovered the lost wreck of the SS Gothenburg. The uninsured floating bank The Gothenburg was a 60-metre-long English steamship contracted to the South Australian government to travel between Palmerston, now called Darwin, and Adelaide. In a public lecture in Townsville in 2011, marine archaeologist Vivienne Moran said the Gothenburg was considered so secure it was known at the time as a floating bank and therefore was not insured. On a trip from Darwin to Adelaide in 1875, the Gothenburg crashed on the Great Barrier Reef with 93 kilograms of gold on board. Over the next 24 hours it slowly sank, killing about 100 people. Dr Moran described the scene as "a sea of heads". Newspapers at the time said the stomachs of sharks caught nearby were found to contain human bones and clothing. There were 22 recorded survivors, some of whom managed to row about 50 kilometres to Holbourne Island, where they reportedly ate raw seabird eggs to survive. Survivor James Fitzgerald engraved the group's names on the inside of the shell of a turtle they killed for food while on the island. The race for gold Dr Moran said when news of the wreck had broken in the 1800s, deep-sea diver James Putwain immediately sought out the wreck and its treasure. His account of diving the wreck was published in the Mackay Mercury in March 1875, where he described the "melancholy sight" of finding two women's bodies, beyond recognition, floating with arms still interlocked at the base of the ship's stairs. He successfully retrieved the chest of gold. Another crew visited the site a few weeks later searching for the gold, but it was already gone. With no more treasure and in an era before GPS or reliable mapping, knowledge of the shipwreck's location was forgotten until Mr Rubiolo and his mates stumbled upon it. Underwater grave sites Of the 900 or so shipwrecks thought to have occurred on the Great Barrier Reef, only about 120 have ever been found, according to the Queensland Museum. Loading..."I am always so struck that these ships were often grave sites for people who lost their lives," senior curator of maritime archaeology Maddy McAllister said. "They're sitting here as silent reminders of these people's lives." Dr McAllister said there were two methods by which shipwrecks were often found: either researching historical clues, or happenstance, which she said was more common. "This is a really classic story of how we find shipwrecks," she said of Mr Rubiolo's discovery. "It happens more often than people think. "Sometimes these wrecks can be deep and you see nothing and then suddenly this structure will loom up out of the darkness at you." She said despite its tragic history, SS Gothenburg "has all the bits of a great shipwreck story". The shipwreck is now protected under Commonwealth legislation. With a strict non-disturbance policy, divers need a permit to explore the ship.