Bellona High Sea

North of the Chesterfield reefs, the Coral Sea opens between Australia and New Caledonia. Farther south the low islets and reefs of Chesterfield and Bellona stand in the path of ocean-going ships. In 1793 William Wright Bampton's Shah Hormuzeer and the whaler Chesterfield spent five days caught within the northern reefs; Bampton recorded wooded islets and seabirds.