Peter Nuyts, (Pieter Nuijts), a Dutch Official on board the sailing ship Gulde Zeepaard and Dutch skipper Francis Thyssen (Francois Thijssen), sighted the south west coast of Western Australia (Terra Australis) near Cape Leeuwin. They sailed east along this unchartered coastline for about sixteen hundred kilometres, from Cape Leeuwin to Nuyts Archipelago and as far as the Islands of St. Francis and St. Peter in the Australian Bight.
The coast was named to honour their discovery, “Nuytsland”. The chart of Hessel Gerritsz, dated 1628, shows the islands off the coast of Esperance that Peter Nuyts had discovered in January 1627 and it is certain that Peter Nuyts visited the Recherche Archipelago islands.
