28 August 1770

James Cook's Journal: Daily Entries

Table of Contents On this day ... 28 August 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...

28 August 1770 Tuesday 28th Fresh breezes ^at Et and EBS and fair weather Continued a NW Course untill sun Set at which time we had L Shortend sail and hauld close upon a wind to the Northward, depth of water at this time 21 fathom — At 8 Tack'd and Stood to the Southward untill 12, than Stood to the Northward under little sail untill day light - Sounding from 25 to 17 fathom, Shoaldening as we stood to the northward,   At this time we made sail and steer'd North in order to make the land of New-Guinea; from the time of our makeing sail untill Noon the depth of water gradually decreased from 17 to 12 fathom a stoney and shelly bottom; We were now by observation in the Latitude of 8°..52' St which is in the same Parallell as the southern parts of New-Guinea as it is laid down in the Charts but there are only two points so far to the South and I reckon that we are a Degree to the westward of both and for that reason do not see the land which trends more to the northward. Our Course and distance saild sence Yesterday is NNW, 69 Miles Longitude in 221°..27' West. The Sea in many places is here cover'd with a kind of a brown scum, such as Sa[i]lors generally call spawn, upon our first seeing it, it alarm'd us thinking that we were among Shoals, but we found the same depth of Water where it was as in other places. Neither Mr Banks nor Dr Solander could tell what it was altho they had of it to examine — Voyaging Accounts © Transcription by Paul Turnbull of National Library of Australia, Manuscript 1 page 303, 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/cook/17700828.html