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Vavaʻu Group
Vavau is an island group, consisting of one large island ( ʻUtu Vavaʻu) and 40 smaller ones, in Tonga. It is part of Vavaʻu District, which includes several other individual islands. According to tradition, the Maui god created both Tongatapu and Vavau, but put a little more effort into the former. Vavau rises above sea level at Mount Talau. The capital is Neiafu, situated at the Port of Refuge (Puatalefusi or Lolo-a-Halaevalu). History Myths and legends In Polynesia, it is said that the islands were created by the god Maui, who reached into the bottom of the sea with his magic hook, caught something on it, and pulled it up to the sea surface, and it became the islands of Vavau. Recorded history Don Francisco Mourelle de la Rúa, commanding the Spanish frigate ''Princesa'', was the first European to come to Vavau, which he did on 4 March 1781. He charted Vavaʻu as ''Martín de Mayorga'', naming it after the incumbent Viceroy of New Spain. Captain James Cook had k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east. At in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), the Pacific Ocean is the largest division of the World Ocean and the hydrosphere and covers approximately 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of the planet's total surface area, larger than its entire land area ().Pacific Ocean . ''Encyclopædia Britannica, Britannica Concise.'' 2008: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The centers of both the Land and water hemispheres, water hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere, as well as the Pole of inaccessi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east. Europe shares the landmass of Eurasia with Asia, and of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. Europe is commonly considered to be Boundaries between the continents#Asia and Europe, separated from Asia by the Drainage divide, watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural (river), Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea, and the waterway of the Bosporus, Bosporus Strait. "Europe" (pp. 68–69); "Asia" (pp. 90–91): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe ... is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea with its outlets, the Bosporus and Dardanelles." Europe covers approx. , or 2% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface (6.8% of Earth's land area), making it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16th century, it had become the principal industry in the Basque coastal regions of Spain and France. The whaling industry spread throughout the world and became very profitable in terms of trade and resources. Some regions of the world's oceans, along the animals' migration routes, had a particularly dense whale population and became targets for large concentrations of whaling ships, and the industry continued to grow well into the 20th century. The depletion of some whale species to near extinction led to the banning of whaling in many countries by 1969 and to an international cessation of whaling as an industry in the late 1980s. Archaeological evidence suggests the earliest known forms of whaling date to at least 3000 BC, practiced by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malaspina Expedition
The Malaspina Expedition (1789–1794) was a five-year maritime scientific exploration commanded by Alejandro Malaspina and José de Bustamante y Guerra. Although the expedition receives its name from Malaspina, he always insisted on giving Bustamante an equal share of command. Bustamante had, however, acknowledged Malaspina as the "head of the expedition" since the beginning. The expedition was funded by the Spanish government and originally pursued strictly scientific goals, in the same fashion as the voyages of James Cook and Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse. Some of the leading scientists at the time collected an impressive amount of scientific data that even surpassed what was collected during Cook's expedition, but due to Malaspina's involvement in a conspiracy to overthrow the government, he was jailed shortly upon return. Most of the expedition's reports and collections were put away unpublished, and did not see the light of day until the late 19th century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late (Tonga)
Late Island is an uninhabited volcanic island southwest of Vavaʻu in the kingdom of Tonga. Geography The small, 6-km-wide circular island of Late, lying along the Tofua volcanic arc about 55 km WSW of the island of Vavau, contains a 400-m-wide, 150-m-deep summit crater with an ephemeral lake. The largely submerged basaltic andesite to andesitic volcano rises 1500 m from the sea floor, with its conical summit reaching 540 m above sea level. Cinder cones are found north of the summit crater, west and north of a semicircular plateau 100–150 m below the summit, and on the NW coast. A graben-like structure on the NE flank contains two large pit craters, the lower of which is partially filled by a saltwater lake. Only two eruptions have occurred in historical time, both from NE-flank craters, which produced explosive activity and possible lava flows in 1790 and 1854. History It was discovered by Spanish naval officer Francisco Mourelle de la Rúa on 27 February 1781, on boa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fonualei
Fonualei is an uninhabited volcanic island in the kingdom of Tonga. It 70 km northwest of Vavaʻu and is part of the highly active Kermadec-Tonga subduction zone and its associated volcanic arc, which extends from New Zealand north-northeast to Fiji, and is formed by the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Indo-Australian Plate. The closest island to Fonualei is Tokū 19.7 km to the southeast. Geography The island is the peak of an active volcano which rises 1000m from the seafloor. It has a diameter of 2 km and a maximum height of 188m. The coast is surrounded by cliffs, with only two beaches suitable for a landing. The western, southern, and north-eastern sides have narrow fringing reefs. History In the 1830s the inhabitants of Tokū used Fonualei for their gardens. The first European to sight the island was Don Francisco Mourelle de la Rua on the ''La Princesa'' on 26 February 1781. He reported the island to be barren from eruptions, and called it f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anchoring
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to secure a Watercraft, vessel to the Seabed, bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to Leeway, wind or Ocean current, current. The word derives from Latin ', which itself comes from the Greek language, Greek (). Anchors can either be temporary or permanent. Permanent anchors are used in the creation of a mooring (watercraft)#Permanent anchor mooring, mooring, and are rarely moved; a specialist service is normally needed to move or maintain them. Vessels carry one or more temporary anchors, which may be of different designs and weights. A sea anchor is a drag device, not in contact with the seabed, used to minimize drift of a vessel relative to the water. A drogue is a drag device used to slow or help steer a vessel Point of sail, running before a storm in a following or overtaking sea, or when crossing a bar in a breaking sea. Anchoring Anchors achieve holding power either by "hooking" i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harbour
A harbor (American English), or harbour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be Mooring, moored. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is a man-made facility built for loading and unloading Watercraft, vessels and dropping off and picking up passengers. Harbors usually include one or more ports. Alexandria Port in Egypt, meanwhile, is an example of a port with two harbors. Harbors may be natural or artificial. An artificial harbor can have deliberately constructed breakwater (structure), breakwaters, sea walls, or jetties or they can be constructed by dredging, which requires maintenance by further periodic dredging. An example of an artificial harbor is Long Beach Harbor, California, United States, which was an array of salt marshes and tidal flats too shallow for modern merchant ships before it was first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haʻapai
Haʻapai is a group of islands, islets, reefs, and shoals in the central part of Tonga. It has a combined land area of . The Tongatapu island group lies to its south, and the Vavaʻu group lies to its north. Seventeen of the Haʻapai islands are inhabited. Their combined population is 5,419. The highest point in the Ha‘apai group, and in all of Tonga, is on Kao (island), Kao, which rises almost above sea level. The administrative capital village of Administrative divisions of Tonga#Administrative subdivisions, Haʻapai District is Pangai, which is located on Lifuka. Geography Haʻapai comprises 51 islands that lie directly west of the Tonga Trench. They constitute a chain of both volcano, volcanic and coral islands, including Kao, the highest point in the kingdom, which stands high. Farther to the east are the coral islands, which are inhabited. The Haʻapai archipelago lies north of Tongatapu and south of Vavaʻu. Seventeen of the islands are inhabited, including the main ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 1768 and 1779. He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand and was the first known European to visit the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager before enlisting in the Royal Navy in 1755. He served during the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the St. Lawrence River during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, siege of Quebec. In the 1760s, he mapped the coastline of Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland and made important astronomical observations which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty (United Kingdom), Admiralty and the Royal Society. This acclaim came at a crucial moment in Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Captain (Royal Navy)
Captain (Capt.) is a senior officer rank of the Royal Navy. It ranks above commander and below commodore and has a NATO ranking code of OF-5. The rank is equivalent to a colonel in the British Army and Royal Marines, and to a group captain in the Royal Air Force. There are similarly named equivalent ranks in the navies of many other countries. Seagoing captains In the Royal Navy, the officer in command of any warship of the rank of commander and below is informally referred to as "the captain" on board, even though holding a junior rank, but formally is titled "the commanding officer" (or CO). Until the nineteenth century Royal Navy officers who were captains by rank and in command of a naval vessel were referred to as post-captains. Captain (D) or Captain Destroyers, afloat, was an operational appointment commanding a destroyer flotilla or squadron, and there was a corresponding administrative appointment ashore, until at least a decade after the Second World War. The t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
