enough warning to haul away, describing the roar of the surf as ‘the voice of God, and
we obeyed it’. At daybreak the roar of the surf was plainly heard by James Cook and
the vast foaming breakers could be seen only a few kilometres away. There was no
wind to allow them to haul away and the ocean current was relentlessly carrying the
Endeavour towards the outer edge of the reef. Joseph Banks describes their situation
as desperate:
At three o’clock this morn it dropped calm on a sudden which did not at all better our
situation; we judged ourselves not more than 4 or 5 leagues from the reef, maybe much less,
and the swell of the sea which drove right in upon it carried the ship towards it fast ... as
day broke the vast foaming billows were plainly enough to be seen scarce a mile from us
and towards which we found the ship carried by the waves surprisingly fast ... Now was our
case truly desperate, no man I believe but who gave himself entirely over, a speedy death
was all we had to hope for and that from the vastness of the breakers which must quickly
dash the ship all to pieces was scarce to be doubted.They were now almost upon the reef. Cook describes how the ship rose to a
prodigious height with one breaker and that between them and destruction was only a
dismal valley the breadth of one wave. Then, what Banks describes as a little breeze
came up from the west which halted their progress and using their sails they were
able to move away in a slanting direction until they saw a narrow break in the reef
ahead. The pinnace was sent to scout the opening and came back with the news that
although it was very narrow, the passage was quite free from shoals. Once again,
Banks describes how they were saved from disaster:
The ship’s head was immediately put towards it and with the tide she towed fast so that by
three we entered and were hurried in by a stream almost like a mill race, which kept us from
even a fear of the sides, though it was not above ¼ of a mile in breadth. By 4pm we came to
an anchor happy once more to encounter those shoals which but two days before we thought
ourselves supremely happy to have escaped from. How little do men know what is for their
real advantage: two days ago our utmost wishes were crowned by getting without the reef
and today we were made happy again by getting within it.For once James Cook allowed his emotions to be recorded in his journal, because he
wrote that ‘it pleased GOD at this juncture to send us a light air of wind’ and he named the
gap in the reef that saved them Providential Channel, a name it bears to this day.
However, the Endeavour still had to make its way through the reefs and shoals
of the Torres Strait that separates Australia from Papua New Guinea. Cook had on
(^42) Where Australia Collides with Asia
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