European Encounters
Abel Tasman sighted Umboi Island in the Vitiaz Strait in 1643 but failed to realise that the Strait separated the island from the coast of New Guinea. William Dampier charted the passage now named Dampier Strait between Umboi Island and New Britain in 1700 Dampier had established that the land mass he named New Britain was an island. As he sailed northwesterly through the passage, Dampier charted and named various islands which lay between the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits: Sir George Rook's Island (later Rooke Island, now Umboi Island), Long Island (Arop Island) and Crown Island.
Read more about this topic: Vitiaz Strait
Famous quotes containing the words european and/or encounters:
“Unsophisticated and confiding, they are easily led into every vice, and humanity weeps over the ruin thus remorselessly inflicted upon them by their European civilizers.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“One encounters very capable fathers abashed by their piano-playing daughters. Three measures of Schumann make them red with embarrassment.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)