Unfortunately
No-one took any notice of the Radio Amateurs. It's Tony Hancock's fault.
It’s the story of a tiny little Coral Sea island that’s gone all around the world: a group of scientists on expedition visit the spot where the island is marked on the maritime charts, only to find it doesn’t exist. And with the island – called Sandy Island and formerly thought to exist in the ocean between Australia and New …
I did look for it on apple maps earlier. It's not there, but *something* is.
Find the "right" place and put the map in 3d. There's a chain of mountains right where the island is supposed to be - incredibly tall spiky mountains. Probably a glitch in somebody's sea floor elevation data?
Google Earth shows a blacked-out area - with obviously pixellated edges - at the position of "Sandy Island". Given that Google Earth uses satellite images, something is obviously amiss.
There is also a strange pinked-out area just NW of New Caledonia (which appears on at least one side to be bounded by barrier islands or atolls).
Icon because that's what happened to some of the atolls in this part of the world.
Done to death at the start of "Biggles' Second Case" (hunting a rogue Nazi sub in the South Atlantic / Southern Ocean post WWII).
According to that, a few of the little islands listed in that part of the world on Admiralty charts of the period had the letters "E.D." after the name. "Existance Doubtful", as in someone's seen it and reported it's position, but nobody's been able to find it since.
The navigator on my first ship in the RN recalled his time in Hong Kong in the early '90s, on planning a patrol he was asked by the Hydrographic Office if he could just check the details on some of the charts as they weren't too sure about the coastlines on a few of the islands, or their exact position. As he said, didn't fill you with confidence.
Sadly streetview on the Tracy - I mean, Sandy Island base is not available.
Would have liked to have seen where all those old fashioned washing up liquid bottles went. Any offspring I help produce wont have those memories, the shape of modern washing up bottles are useless at making these things.
If you look on a professionally produced chart - say by the UK Hydrographic Office for instance - then you will find that the island is not there and never has been. Use a Mickey-Mouse chart and get Mickey-Mouse results I say.
I'd have liked it to have been Leshp, but as ever things seem to be a bit more mundane than we'd like.