1775 Voyage
Mourelle served the Spanish navy in the Guyanas, Trinidad, and the Antilles before becoming stationed at New Spain's Pacific Ocean naval base at San Blas, Mexico in 1774. He joined the 1775 expedition of Bruno de Heceta and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, serving as Quadra's pilot on the schooner Sonora. On July 29, at around 49 degrees north latitude, the Sonora became separated from Heceta's ship Santiago. Heceta soon returned south while Quadra and Mourelle continued north, eventually reaching 58 degrees 30 minutes north latitude. They found and anchored in Bucareli Bay. Then they sailed south, arriving at Monterey, California, on October 7, and San Blas on November 20, 1775.
Mourelle's journal was somehow taken clandestinely to London where it was translated and published. Captain James Cook made use of the information in Mourelle's journal during his travels in the Pacific Northwest.
Read more about this topic: Francisco Antonio Mourelle
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“But where is laid the sailor John
That so many lands had known,
Quiet lands or unquiet seas
Where the Indians trade or Japanese?
He never found his rest ashore,
Moping for one voyage more.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)