The weeks following the change of the course to the north were uneventful, only marked by an occasional success of the naturalists in obtaining a fresh specimen, some of which were experimented on by the cook; an albatross, skinned, soaked all night in salt water, was stewed, served with savoury sauce, and was preferred to salt pork; a cuttle-fish of large size, freshly killed by the birds, and too much damaged for classification, was made into soup, of which Banks says:  “Only this I know that, of it was made one of the best soups I ever ate.”  The water obtained at Tierra del Fuego turned out very good:  a great boon, as one of their great troubles and a source of great anxiety to Cook was the bad quality of the water so often obtained.

Towards the end of March a change was noticed in the kinds of birds flying round the ship, some being recognised as ones that were known to stay near land, and consequently a sharp look-out was kept.  On the night of the 24th a tree-trunk was reported, but when morning came nothing further was seen.  It has since been ascertained they were then a little to the north of Pitcairn Island, afterwards the home of the mutineers of the Bounty; but Cook did not feel himself at liberty to make any deviation from his course “to look for what he was not sure to find,” although he thought he was “not far from those islands discovered by Quiros in 1606.”

On 26th march one of the marines committed suicide by drowning.  It seems he had misappropriated a piece of sealskin, and his fellow-soldiers, indignant that such a thing should have been done by one of the cloth, made his life uncomfortable and threatened that he should be reported for theft.  This was the fifth death since leaving England, and none by disease.

The 4th April, at 10.30 A.M., Banks’s servant, Peter Briscoe, sighted land, and the course of the ship was altered to give them a chance of inspecting it.  It was found to be one of those peculiar circular reefs surrounding a lagoon, called atolls, which exist in some quantity in the Pacific.  There was no anchorage, so they made no attempt to land, but were able to see it was inhabited.  Some twenty-four persons were counted through the glasses, and were described as copper-coloured, with black hair; they followed the ship as if prepared to oppose a landing.  The reef was covered with trees, amongst which the coconut palm was conspicuous.  Cook gave it the name of Lagoon Island; it is now known as Vahitahi, and is one of the Low Archipelago.  Being now in Wallis’s track, islands were sighted almost every day, and almost all appeared inhabited, but owing to the want of safe anchorage, no communication could be held with the natives.