On this day ...
23 - 24 August 1770
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
Passage from New South Wales to New Guinea
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IN the afternoon of Thursday August the 23d, after leaving Booby Island, we steered W.N.W. with light airs from the S.S.W. till five o’clock, when it fell calm, and the tide of ebb soon after setting to the N.E. we came to an anchor in eight fathom water, with a soft sandy bottom. Booby Island bore S. 50 E. distant five miles, and the Prince of Wales’s Isles extended from N.E. by N. to S. 55 E.; between these there appeared to be a clear open passage, extending from N. 46 E. to E. by N.
At half an hour after five, in the morning of the 24th, as we were purchasing the anchor, the cable parted at about eight or ten fathom from the ring: the ship then began to drive, but I immediately dropped another anchor, which brought her up before she got more than a cable’s length from the buoy; the boats were then sent to sweep for the anchor, but could not succeed. At noon, our latitude, by observation, was 10° 30’ S. As I was resolved not to leave the anchor behind, while there remained a possibility of recovering it, I sent the boats again after dinner, with a small line, to discover where it lay; this being happily effected, we swept for it with a hawser, and by the same hawser hove the ship up to it: we proceeded to weigh it, but just as we were about to ship it, the hawser slipped, and we had all our labour to repeat: by this time it was dark, and we were obliged to suspend our operations till the morning.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 649 - 650, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/649.html