Torres Strait
The 150-kilometre-wide Torres Strait between Cape York Peninsula and New Guinea connects the Coral Sea to the east with the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Although it is a significant international sea lane, shallow water with depths between seven and fifteen metres and a maze of reefs, islands, and tidal currents make navigation hazardous. Most shipping passes through the Endeavour Strait, discovered by James Cook in 1770, between Prince of Wales Island/Muralug, the mainland, and the Adolphus Channel to the southeast.
The Strait takes its name from the Spanish navigator who sailed through it in 1606. Luís Vaez de Torres was effectively second-in-command on the Spanish expedition to the South Pacific commanded by Pedro Fernandes de Quirós, which sailed from Peru on 21 December 1605.
After the expedition arrived in modern-day Vanuatu the following May, a combination of circumstances forced Quirós' flagship to abandon the expedition. While the flagship made its way to Mexico, Torres took the expedition's two remaining vessels to Manila via New Guinea's south coast and the Maluku Islands.
While Torres and his crew are not known to have sighted the coast of a significant land mass to their south, and Spanish maps show the coast of New Guinea but omit Australia, his passage probably took him close to Cape York Peninsula's northern tip.
The Torres voyage remained unknown outside Spain until Alexander Dalrymple found references to the journey in documents captured in Manila in 1762 and other papers that found their way into his possession.
Joseph Banks had a copy of Dalrymple's Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean with him when the Endeavour left England in 1768, and may have alerted James Cook of a possible shortcut through the Strait as Cook headed for Batavia after charting Australia's eastern coast and nearly coming to grief off Cape Tribulation.
Cook's passage through the Strait in 1770 established a route between Australia's east coast and the East Indies. Still, it was another fifty-three years until John Lihou's Zenobia made the first passage through the Strait from west to east.
From there, traffic through the Strait grew slowly until British missionaries and less scrupulous operators seeking pearls and beche de mer entered the Strait in the 1860s and 1870s.
Links to add:
Adolphus Channel
beche-de-mer
Endeavour Strait
Gulf of Carpentaria
Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean
John Lihou
Prince of Wales Island/Muralug
