Cook's Bay (also known as Paopao Bay) is a 3-km long bay on the north coast of the island of

Mo'orea Moorea ( or ; Tahitian: ), also spelled Moorea, is a volcanic island in French Polynesia. It is one of the Windward Islands, a group that is part of the Society Islands, northwest of Tahiti. The name comes from the Tahitian word , meaning " ...

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...

. It is one of the two principal bays on the island. The other, Opunohu Bay is 4 km west of Cooks Bay.

Pao Pao Pao Pao is an associated commune on the island of Moorea, in French Polynesia. It is part of the commune Moorea-Maiao. According to a census in 2007, it had a population of 4,244 people. According to the 2012 census, it had grown to a population ...

, the largest village on Mo'orea, lies at the head of Cook's Bay. Mo'orea is a tourist destinations, and several hotels lie on the shore of the bay. The

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

maintains the Richard B. Gump South Pacific Research Station on the west coast of Cook's Bay. Cook's Bay was named after the British explorer

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

. Cook's party visited Mo'orea during Cook's first voyage in 1769 to observe the

transit of Venus frameless, upright=0.5 A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a trans ...

, but Cook himself did not visit the island until his third voyage. He landed in Opunohu Bay on 30 September 1777, but later visited what is now Cook's Bay by land.

References

{{Coord, -17.495, -149.822, dim:5000_region:PF, display=title Bays of French Polynesia Bodies of water of Tahiti Mo'orea