Should you wonder why this fine cache was given the intriguing title "The Battle of Cape Rachado", wonder no more! Tanjung Tuan is also known under its old Portuguese name Cape Rachado, and it just so happens that, from its hiding place, the cache overlooks the historical site where this famous sea battle, one of the fiercest ever fought in these parts of the world, took place. The first siege of Melaka (Malacca) and the subsequent Battle of Cape Rachado represent a key moment in Dutch, Portuguese and Malaysian history.
The all-in-one angle of view at Lighthouse Viewpoint includes many features that define this cape. Malaysia's oldest lighthouse stands tall on the with primary coastal hill dipterocarp forest overgrown quartz ridge, which falls down to a rocky coastline. During low tide, the crystal-clear water allows you a peek at the Pedoman Shoal where often fisherman can be seen, and in the distance, you can spot the site of the tidal caves.
An interesting little fact: the beach on which this cache is located is locally known as Treasure Hunters Beach, because people regularly find shards of porcelain and who knows what other untold finds here. Shards of porcelain are a common find around Tanjung Tuan and neighbouring Melaka, especially after a spell of bad weather. Coins or other treasure are a genuine possibility, so keep your eyes peeled, you might get lucky!
If you want to know more about the Battle of Cape Rachado, read on!
The view "Lighthouse Viewpoint" is quite spectacular.
(Source: Barnyard Dawg, 2017)
The Battle of Cape Rachado
The Battle of Cape Rachado, off the present-day Malaccan exclave of Tanjung Tuan in 1606, was an important naval engagement between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and Portuguese fleets.
It marked the beginning of a conflict between the combined Dutch/Johor forces against the Portuguese. It was the biggest naval battle in the Malay Archipelago between two naval superpowers of the time with at least 31 ships (11 of the Dutch VOC and 20+ of the Portuguese). Although the battle ended with a Portuguese victory, the ferocity of the battle itself and the losses sustained by the victor convinced the Sultanate of Johor to provide supplies, support and later on much-needed ground forces to the Dutch, forcing a Portuguese capitulation. 130 Years of Portuguese supremacy in the region ended with the fall of the city and fortress of Malacca, almost 30 years later, in 1641.
Departure and alliance with Johor
Melaka, which was earlier the capital of the Sultanate of Melaka, was besieged and wrested by the Portuguese in 1511, forcing the Sultan to retreat, eventually founding the successor state of Johor, and continue the war from there. The port city, which the Portuguese had turned into a formidable fortress, was strategically situated in the middle of the strait of the same name giving control to both the spice trade of the Malay Archipelago and supremacy over the sea lane of the lucrative trade between Europe and the Far East. The Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) decided that to expand further to the east, the Portuguese monopoly and especially Melaka must first be neutralised.
The fleet was the third sent by the VOC to the archipelago, with 11 ships – Oranje, Nassau, Middelburg, Witte Leeuw, Zwarte Leeuw, Mauritius, Grote Zon, Amsterdam, Kleine Zon, Erasmus and Geüniveerde Provinciën. The Oranje lead with Admiral Cornelis Matelief de Jonge in command. The Dutch fleet set sail from Texel, Holland on May 12, 1605. The fleet departed with the sailors said that they were on a trade voyage as de Jonge was ordered to keep his true mission, which was to siege Malacca and force a Portuguese surrender, a secret.
They passed Malacca on April 1606 and arrived at Johor on May 1, 1606, where de Jonge proceeded to negotiate for a term of alliance with Johor. A pact was formally concluded on May 17, 1606, in which Johor had agreed to a combined effort with the Dutch to attempt to dislodge the Portuguese from Malacca. Unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch and Johor agreed to respect each other's religion, the Dutch would get to keep Malacca, have the right to trade in Johor, and would not attempt to interfere or wage war against Johor. In effect, the agreement served to limit Dutch influence on the Malay Peninsula in contrast to the islands of the archipelago, which would become the Dutch East Indies.
Impression of the Battle of Cape Rachado - The Dutch vs. The Portuguese.
The Battle
Matelief de Jonge started the assault by besieging the fortress. He was hoping that by blockading and cutting the supplies to the Portuguese, prolonged hunger and direct assault would force them to capitulate. This was not to be, as their Johor allies were still unsure of the ability of the Dutch forces against the Portuguese in Melaka and did not fully commit any of their resources to the attack, other than providing limited supplies and a safe haven at their ports. The Dutch, realising they were on their own, could not afford a prolonged land offensive against their well-entrenched opponent.
However, the Dutch did manage to maintain the siege for a significant time and the situation started to get worse for the Portuguese until August 14, 1606, when a Portuguese fleet from Goa arrived. Led by the Viceroy of Goa, Dom Martim Afonso de Castro, the siege was lifted when the 20-odd ships began to engage the VOC fleet off the Malaccan waters. The two fleets traded cannon fire and the Portuguese ships began to move northward, drawing the Dutch away from Malacca. On August 16, 1606, off the Portuguese lighthouse at Cape Rachado, the battle between the two fleets was enjoined.
Heavy cannons salvoes opened the battle with each side trying to weaken the opponent before the ships closed on each other and the battle would have to be fought hand-to-hand. After a couple of days of cannon duels, on the morning of 18 August, with the wind in favour of the Portuguese, Martim Afonso de Castro ordered the Portuguese to sail forth for the grapple. Matelief, seeing the danger, ordered his ships to turn sail away from the oncoming ships to evade boarding. However, for some reason, the VOC ship Nassau, failed to turn quickly, and ended up lingering behind, dangerously isolated. The Portuguese ship Santa Cruz dashed forth and boarded the Nassau.
Matelief de Jonge ordered his own ship, the Oranje, to quickly turn around to rescue the hapless Nassau, but the awkward manoeuvre sent the Oranje into a collision with the Middelburg. While the Dutch captains were busy disentangling their ships, Martim de Castro's ship, the Nossa Senhora da Conceição boarded the Nassau from the other side. The Dutch crew of the Nassau managed to jump into a lifeboat, leaving the fiercely burning Nassau behind. Later, the crew of the Santa Cruz and Nossa Senhora Conceição set the Nassau ablaze, resulting in a spectacular explosion that would cause the Nassau to burn down to the waterline, after which it sank on August 22, 1606.
In the meantime, the Portuguese ship São Salvador drove towards the entangled VOC ships and pierced headlong into the Middelburg, but was immediately itself grappled by the Oranje from the side, which was in turn rammed from its open side by the ship of D. Henrique de Noronha (the Nossa Senhora das Mercês). The entangled duo had now become a quartet. A furious battle raged between the hopelessly entangled ships, with point-blank cannonades quickly setting the ships ablaze, as much a danger to one as the other.
Into this confusion entered the galleon of Dom Duarte de Guerra, who sought to toss a line to help tow Noronha's ship away from the burning Oranje. But the winds were unfavourable and instead the rescuer found itself drifting straight across the bows of the entangled ships. Just then the Mauritius decided to join the fight and pierces Dom Duarte de Guerra's ship from the other side. The battle had reached its height in the sextet of burning, interlocked ships.
Matelief de Jonge realised that the smaller Dutch ships would not last long, and that they must get out of this position before the larger Portuguese drop anchor. He ordered the Oranje to cut the grapple-lines' to the São Salvador, and sailed away from the mess. Albeit, Noronha's Mercês was still tied to Oranje and was dragged along with it. The Mauritius also decided to cut its grappling cables when it noticed Dom Duarte de Guerra's galleon had caught fire.
The remaining entangled ships – the Middelburg, the São Salvador and Dom Duarte de Guerra's galleon – would burn and go down together on August 18, still entangled.
In the meantime, a furious fight continued to be fought between Matelief's Oranje and Noronha's Mercês, who were still grappled. Matelief proposed a truce to D. Henrique de Noronha, to allow both parties to put out their fires and save their ships, to which Noronha agreed. However, the Oranje had dropped anchor, and as the crews went about extinguishing the flames, the winds were now sending the remaining Dutch ships towards the Oranje and the Portuguese ships away from it. Noronha's fate seemed doomed, but Matelief, not wishing to exploit a truce he had himself proposed, magnanimously offers to cut the grapple and allow Noronha to slip away unmolested back to the Portuguese line. For this honourable gesture, Noronha swore never to personally fight Matelief again.
This final courteous exchange displeased the vice-roy Martim Afonso de Castro, who would have preferred to allow Noronha's ship to continue burning and take the Dutch flagship down with it. D. Henrique de Noronha was promptly dismissed from the command of the Mercês, and replaced.
Matelief de Jonge deemed that the losses suffered were too much and ordered the Dutch fleet to disengage and abandon the fight. The Portuguese won the battle, but the failed Dutch attack marked the beginning of a serious threat to their dominance in the archipelago, culminating in a massive Dutch-Johor-Aceh assault 30 years after, which broke the gates and might of fortress Melaka.
Impression of the Battle of Cape Rachado - The Dutch vs. the Portuguese.
Aftermath
The Dutch requested shelter from Johor and arrived at Johor River on 19 August 1606. Overall, the Dutch lost Nassau and Middelburg. 150 Dutch were killed and any more wounded, with Johor allied losses amounting to several hundred. The Portuguese lost São Salvador and Dom Duarte de Guerra's smaller galleon while suffering 500 deaths (Portuguese and allies).
The battle proved the tenacity of the Dutch in their war against the Portuguese, which caused the Sultan of Johor to fully commit on providing the much-needed re-enforcements, additional ships and resources. The Portuguese victory at Cape Rachado came to naught when the Dutch, having repaired their ships, returned to Malacca 2 months later to find the bulk of the Portuguese fleet having left, leaving only 10 ships behind. The Dutch subsequently sank all 10 ships.
Impression of the Battle of Cape Rachado - Ships burning at the cape.
Shipwrecks and excavation
All four ships lost at Cape Rachado were found by Gerald Caba of CABACO Marine Pte Ltd, Singapore, during a search of Bambe(e)k Shoal (named after the Bambeek, another Dutch VOC ship that sank here on January 1, 1702) in an effort to find the British merchant ship Caroline. The Caroline went down on an undisclosed sandbank in the early 19th century. When looking out to sea, Bambek Shoal would be located to your far right; it is better viewed from the nearby quartz ridge outcrop known as Bukit Batu Putih.
Commissioned recoveries were made in 1995 under the supervision of Mensun Bound from Oxford University. The Nassau was found about 8-nautical-mile (15 km) off the modern town of Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan. The wreckage of the Nassau was the primary target, as it is currently the oldest known wreckage of a Dutch East Indiaman (a "transom return ship", built for transport between the Dutch Republic and the settlements and strongholds of the Dutch East India Company in the East Indies). Visibility during this investigation was poor due to the strong currents, but eventually the archaeological unit managed to salvage more than 3000 artifacts. The wreck was found with 15 cannons (two bronze ones dated 1604), cannonballs, ropes and wooden barrels with animal bones, several thousand silver Spanish Reals, navigation instruments and a Chinese jar. The wreckage of the Middelburg, São Salvador and Dom Duarte de Guerra's galleon were found 0.7-nautical-mile (1.3 km) away from Nassau.
The Battle of Cape Rachado had to be fierce; only a few unspent bullets have been found. Mensun Bound from Oxford University was in charge of the expedition and said: "When you're down there looking at the remains of this ship, you get a great sense of the violence... you see smashed timber and sheet metal torn apart as if it was paper." And about the cannons found thus far: "Every single one of them broken apart, exploded, ruptured."
Plans to raise the Nassau have been postponed because the two states involved (negeri Sembilan and Melaka) cannot agree on where to place the remains of the ship. They would have to agree on a location before the ship could be raised, and for that, a new museum would have to be built nearby. It is unlikely the wreckage itself will be raised anytime soon, but in the meantime some of the retrieved artefacts from Nassau and an ornate Portuguese cannon are on display at the Lukut Museum in the town of Port Dickson. (N 02° 34.132 E 101° 49.488, follow the signs for Kota Lukut).
References
1 François, Walter and Timmermans, Steven, 2014. Greetings from Melaka. 2 Borschberg, Peter, 2011. Hugo Grotius, the Portuguese and Free Trade in the East Indies. 3 de Witt, Dennis, 2007. History of the Dutch in Malaysia. 4 Maleisie.be. De VOC in Maleisië - Scheepswrakken. 5 Wikipedia.
The cache patiently awaits your visit.
The photo shows the original contents, with a "dead fish" trackable as FTF gift.
(Source: Barnyard Dawg, 2017)
Advice
Rounding the cape at this location might be possible but should be considered extremely dangerous and is not advised! At times, the rip currents can create significant whirlpools here that can often be seen from the lighthouse. This spectacular but extremely dangerous feature has claimed lives before! In fact, even though you might see people fishing on the relatively flat outskirts of the Pedoman Shoal at low tide for crab or other marine foods, it is strongly advised not to enter unfamiliar waters on this side of the cape. Currents here are deceiving and strong enough to pull you out to sea! A cell phone signal is unlikely, and chances are there might be nobody around to help you. Should you wish to take a dip, please do so at the east side of the cape or move to a beach outside the reserve.
The availability of this cache is subject to the tide, and you can only access it during low tide. The difference between low tide and high tide can reach up to 3 metres depending on conditions. While you have a window of 6 to 8 hours to safely access the site during low tide, you do not want to be caught out by the rising tide. If you see people fishing on the shoal, use them as an indicator for you to determine when it is time to leave. They are familiar with these waters, trust their judgement: when they leave, you leave!
Depending on the weather, the sun can be very fierce, take plenty of liquids with you.
Always treat a hike on unfamiliar terrain as a recce hike.
Be prepared, be safe and enjoy the cache!
ATTENTION
This is a low tide only cache! Access to this site is not possible during high tide!
Do not get caught out, verify tide times at the Port Dickson area here or here.
Please do not wade or swim here, the currents are extremely dangerous!
Store all required data, a cellphone signal might not be available here!
Suitable to deposit Travel Bugs.
(i.e. dog-tags with small or no attachment)
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