Philip Carteret Circumnavigation
After Philip Carteret had been abandoned by Wallis in the Dolphin he felt bitter and angry about having been left with a slug of a ship and an inadequate crew. He sailed for Juan Fernandez Island from Cape Pilar and intended to refit and restock the larder at a leisurely pace. After appalling weather, the Swallow reached Juan Fernandez on the tenth of May but it was occupied by Spanish colonists in 1749. Carteret was forced to sail to the island of Mas Afuera where there was no safe anchorage and they had trouble getting water. They left on the 31st May with only half a supply of food and water.
The Swallow sailed north in order to pick up the trade winds go get them across the Pacific. Carteret sailed west just south of the tropics. He missed Tahiti and discovered Pitcairn Island and some of the outer barren atolls of the Tuamotu Archipelago. Carteret turned north and sailed west of the Society Islands and east of Samoa. At about ten degrees South 167 degrees West, the Dolphin veered to the west, looking for the Solomon Islands. He found Santa Cruz, the most eastern island of the Solomons and sailed into Graciosa Bay, where they started loading coconuts until a taboo was broken by chopping down a tree. There was a fight and the English had to sail away without all the supplies they needed.
The Swallow sailed on a west by north course, hoping to reach New Britain, but found more islands in the Solomons before arriving at new Britain and New Ireland on 28th August. At New Ireland they dropped anchor and gathered food, water, and timber, and got their sick healthy again. The Swallow left on 9th September 1767 and made for Mindanao in the southern Phillippines where the natives fired guns to signal them not to land so Carteret moved on and sailed between Sulawesi and Borneo to Batavia. On the 15th December 1767 the Swallow dropped anchor off the Dutch port of Macassar(modern day Ujung Pandang) on the south west coast of Suluwesi. But he Dutch told them to leave and they had to anchor at Bonthain, a small harbor down the coast.
Carteret got out to sea again on 22 May and made for Batavia where the Swallow was repaired and reprovisioned for the voyage home. Carteret could not wait to get away from Batavia because of the sickness and left on 15th September with many of his crew sick with malaria or dysentery. The Swallow took two months to cross the Indian Ocean between September and November with the wind on her port beam or quarter most of the way. They call in at Cape Town and set off in the new year of 1769. The Swallow calls in at the islands of St Helena and Ascension. At Ascension Island they feast on turtles and left messages in bottles. On the 19th February Louis de Bouganville catches up with them and passes them. On the 20th March 1769 the Swallow arrives home to England.
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