Pera Head
Matthew Flinders named the prominent headland on Cape York Peninsula's western coast south of Weipa and Albatross Bay after Jan Carstensz's Pera, which tracked along this section of the peninsula's coast in 1623.
Next morning I set the west extreme of Duyfken Point at N. 9° E. and the furthest land in the opposite direction at S. 9° E. This land forms the south side of the large bight, and besides projecting beyond the coast-line and being a little higher than usual, is remarkable for having some reddish cliffs in it and deep water near the shore. It is not noticed in the Dutch chart, but I called it PERA HEAD, to preserve the name of the second vessel which, in 1623, sailed along this coast. (Matthew Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, IVolume I, p. 129.)
Carstensz described landing at a location he referred to as the waterplaets on 9 May 1623:
In the morning of the 9th, the wind being E.S.E., with good weather, we set sail on a N.N.E. course along the land, and when we had run on for 2 miles, came to anchor in 9 fathom close inshore; I went ashore in person with ten musketeers, and found many footprints of men and of large dogs, going in a southerly direction., we also came upon fresh water flowing into the sea, and named the place de Waeterplaets. The land here is higher than what we have seen to southward, and there are numerous reefs close to the sandy beach; the place is in 12° 33'; in the afternoon the wind was S.W., course held as before; from the Waterplaets aforesaid to a high cape there is a large bay, extending N.E. by N. and S.W. by S. for 7 miles; in the evening we dropped anchor in 4½ fathom.
Surveyor, John Thomas Embley identifies Cartensz's waterplaets in a 1916 letter to Robert Logan Jack:
The waterplaets is at Pera Head. These headlands are about 80 feet high in this locality and consist of soft reddish and whitish sandstone. The red is most conspicuous as being uppermost and gives rise to the expression 'low reddish cliffs' (see Admiralty Chart, corrected to 1896, and 4-mile map, 1908). After the wet season (April and May), small soakages of fresh water may be noticed oozing out from the base, and it is this which must have given rise to the waterplaets.
