Mark's Pages

"On 5 December [1769] Cook decided to leave the Bay of Islands. As a fair breeze blew up, he ordered his men to raise the ship's anchors. They were soon caught in foul winds, however, and that night the Endeavour lay becalmed off the heads, where an eddy caught the ship and swept her towards the rocks at the entrance. The pinnace was lowered in order to take the ship in tow, but it got stuck on a gun and had to be manhandled into the water. In the midst of this chaos a land breeze sprang up, carrying the ship away from the rocks, while Tupaia, unaware of their danger, stood on deck talking to some people on the shoreline. At about half past ten, Cook and Banks retired to their cabins, but shortly afterwards the Endeavour struck on a submerged rock, bringing Cook running up on deck in his drawers. Fortunately the rock was to windward and the ship came safely off, as Banks drily observed, 'much to our satisfaction as the almost certainty of being eat as soon as you came ashore adds not a little to the terrors of shipwreck.'" — Anne Salmond, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog.