North West Island is a coral cay in the southern Great Barrier Reef, located 75 kilometres northeast of Gladstone, Queensland. North West Island forms part of Capricornia Cays National Park and with an area of 1.05 km2, the island is the second largest coral cay in the Great Barrier Reef. It is part of the Capricornia Cays Important Bird Area. History Guano was mined on North West Island during the 1890s. Turtle soup canneries operated on the island from 1904 to 1914 and 1924 to 1926. The environmental importance of North West Island was recognised when it was included as part of Capricornia Cays National Park in 1980. Mystery of the Grave There is a grave located at the Eastern End of the island. There are some differing stories as to the origin of the grave these include In 1902 In our travels through the scrub we came across a baby's grave, beautifully neat and clean even to this day. Loving hands had erected a neat white palisading around the grave, which had for headstone a wooden slab with name and age of the dead baby. The little one sleeps her long sleep under the shade of the evergreen, with the waves bringing a perpetual lullaby In 1923 Close to this store is a grave where one of these aliens sleeps his (or her) last long sleep. There is a doubt as to the sex for Mr. Owens was uncertain on the point. In 1926 Today there is but one evidence of that early settlement is a lonely grave, said to be that of a girl of 17 years of age, whose name, to be read on a tiny wooden cross, was L.L. Sundball. The grave is surrounded by a neat fence in excellent preservation. There is some mystery as to the means by which it maintains a permanent neatness. In 1928 Beneath the gnarled and twisted branches of an aged Tournefortia tree, and surrounded by a neat paling fence, there stands on North-west Island a lonely grave. Carved on the wooden cross at the head is the name L. L. A. Sundvall. and above are the letters H.H. Maybe In this lonely plot, canopied by the dense growth so typical of the Barrier Reef islands, lies hidden a stirring story of heroism, or a gripping epic of a battle against over whelming nature. Maybe the truth will never out,