20 May 1770

James Cook's Journal: Daily Entries

Table of Contents On this day ... 20 May 1770 Endeavour Voyage Maps James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia Joseph Banks's Journal Sydney Parkinson's Journal The authorised published account of Cook's Voyage by John Hawkesworth 1770 Index Search Contact us Search for Nautical Term in Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine...

20 May 1770 Sunday 20th Winds southerly gentle breezes, At 10 oClock in the PM we pass'd ^at the distance of 4 Miles having 17 fm water a black bluf head or point of land on which a number of the natives were assembled, which occasioned my nameing it Indian Head / Latde 25° 0' / NBW. 4 Miles from this head the is a nother much like it, from this last the land trends a little more to the westward and low and sandy next the Sea, for what may be behind it we know not    if land it must be ^all very low for we could see no part of it from the mast head. We saw people in other places besides the one I have mentioned, some smooks in the day and fires in the night. Having but little wind all night we kept on to the northward - haveing from 17 to 34 fathom water from 4 Miles to 4 Leagues from the land.  the northermost part of which bore from us at day light WSW and seem'd to End in a point from which we discover'd a reef stretching out ^to the northward as far as we could see, being at this time in 18 fathom water    for we had before it was light hauld our wind to the westward and this course we continued untill we had plainly discoverd breakers a long way upon our lee bow which saweemd to stretch quite home to the land, we than edge'd away NW and NNW along the East side of the shoal from 2 to 1 Mile off having regular even soundings from 13 to 7 fathom a fine sandy bottom - At Noon we were by observation in the Latitude of 24°..26' So which was 9 13 Miles to the northward of that given by the Log. the extreme point of the reef Shoal we judged to bear about NW from us and the point of land above mentioned bore S3/4W distant 20 Miles, this point I have named Sandy Cape on accou[n]t of two very large white patches of Sand upon it, it is of a height sufficient to be seen 12 Leagues in clear weather / Latde 24°..46', Longde 206 °.51' / from it the Land trended away WSW and SW as far as we could see — Voyaging Accounts © Transcription by Paul Turnbull of National Library of Australia, Manuscript 1 page 239, 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/cook/17700520.html