British explorer James Cook's ship Endeavour has been identified after languishing in US waters for more than two centuries. Endeavour Journal, 21 April 1770:
Our Latitude at Noon was 35.49S. Cape Dromedary bore S30W, dist 12 Leagues. An open Bay wherein lay three or four small islands bore NWbW distant 5 or 6 Leagues, this Bay seem’d to be but very little shelterd from the sea winds and yet it is the only likely anchoring place I have yet seen upon the coast.
Three weeks after his departure from New Zealand supplies of food and firewood were running low. Cook named the bay on his chart as Bateman Bay but it is now known as Batemans Bay, generally considered after Nathaniel Bateman, captain of HMS Northumberland, under whom Cook served as Master from 1760-62 in Canadian waters.
However, according to the The James Cook Heritage Trail given the pattern of names Cook used on this coast, it seems possible that it was named after John Bateman who was one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty in the mid 1750s.
The islands that Cook mentions are the Tollgate Islands.
