2 June 1770

James Cook's Journal: Daily Entries

Table of Contents On this day ... 2 June 1770 Endeavour Voyage Maps James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia Joseph Banks's Journal Sydney Parkinson's Journal Other Accounts ... • 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...

2 June 1770 Saturday 2nd Winds at SSE and SE a gentle breeze, with which we stood to the NW and NWBN as the land lay under an easy sail having a boat ahead sounding; our soundings at first wasere very erregular from 9 to 4 fathoms, but afterwards regular from 9 to 11 fathom — At 8 oClock being about two Leagues from the Main Land we anchor'd in 11 fathom sandy bottom - soon after this we found a Slow motion of a tide seting to the westward - At 1 oClock it was Slack ^or low water and at 1/2 past 2 oClock the Ship tended to the Eastward and and rode so untill 6 at which time we anchor'd the tide had risen 11 feet, We now got under Sail and Stood away NNW as the land lay. From the observations made on the tides last night it is plain that the flood comes from the NW- whereas yesterday and for several days before we found it to come always from the SE.   this is neither the first nor second time that we have observed the same thing and in my opinion easy accounted for but this I shall do in another place - At Sun rise we found the Variation to be 6°..45' East. In steaering along shore between the Island and the Main at the ^distance of 2 Leagues from the latter and 3 or 4 from the former - our sounding were regular from 12 to 9 fathom but about a 11 oClock we wasere again embarrased with Shoal water but got clear without leting go an Anchor, we had at one time not quite 3 fathom. At Noon we were about 2 Leagues from the Main land and about 4 from the Islands without us - our Latitude by observation was 20°..56' Longitude made from Cape Palmerston 16° West    A pretty high Promontary which I named Cape Hillsborough bore W1/2N distant 7 Miles - the Mainland is here pretty much deversified with Mountains, Hills plains and Vallies and seems to be tolerably cloathed with wood and Verdure   the Islands which lay parallel with the Coast and from 5 to 8 or 9 Leagues off are of Various extent both for height and circuit, hardly any exceeds 5 Leagues in circuit and many again are very small besides this chain of Islands which lay at a distance from the coast there are other small ones laying scatterd under the land. Some few smooks were seen on the Mainland — Voyaging Accounts © Transcription by Paul Turnbull of National Library of Australia, Manuscript 1 page 248, 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/cook/17700602.html