The Endeavour Strait is a strait running between the Australian mainland Cape York Peninsula and Prince of Wales Island in the extreme south of the Torres Strait, in northern Queensland, Australia. It was named in 1770 by explorer

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

, after his own vessel, HMS ''Endeavour'', and he used the strait as passage out to the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

on his voyage.

Geography

The Endeavour Strait is approximately in length from its northernmost tip to its southern extremities, and varies from in breadth. The strait is, on average, between deep, and its sandy floor is carpeted with a moderately thick layer of

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

. The strait is generally safe to travel through, and is not littered with any major sunken dangers or foul ground, although, for larger vessels, there is potential danger at the strait's western end, at the point that it connects with the Arafura Sea, where the depth of the water is only around . The danger that this shallow western point presents was a barrier that the Dutch explorers of Australia never overcame in their earlier sea explorations of the region. If they had been able to pass through the Endeavour Strait at the time, it is likely they would have discovered eastern Australia approximately one hundred and fifty years before the British did, in 1770, as the Dutch had been successful in mapping most of the west coast of Australia during the early 17th century following Willem Janszoon's sighting of the Cape York Peninsula in 1606. The shallow western end of Endeavour Strait was also responsible for the wrecking of the cutter, ''America'', in November 1844. All on board were supposedly drowned, except 13-year-old Scottish girl Barbara Thompson who was rescued by

Torres Strait Islanders Torres Strait Islanders ( ) are the Indigenous Melanesians, Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal peoples of the res ...

living on Prince of Wales Island, the Kaurareg people, with whom she lived for five years. Today, the strait is travelled sparsely by passing small vessels, and its western side is often used as a bank for these ships. Because of the relatively shallow average depth of the strait, especially at its westernmost extremities, and the dangers that this presents, there have been recent calls for the body to be deepened, but there are no plans for this at the present time.

References

{{List of Australian seas Straits of Australia Torres Strait channels and passages

Geography

See also

References