Mercury Bay

Mercury Bay is a massive V-fashioned bay at the eastern coast of the Coromandel Peninsula at the North Island of New Zealand. This bay was named via the English navigator Captain James Cook during his exploratory expeditions. It turned into first named Te Whanganui a Hei, the terrific bay of Hei, by using the Maori. On 9 November 1769, Cook landed at the shores of this bay to study a Transit of Mercury. In 1919, a place of land around Shakespeare Cliff became set apart, and a small memorial was constructed, based totally at the erroneous notion that it turned into the area of Cook's observations.

But the real web site of Cook's touchdown and observation become the east end of Cook's Beach, close to the Purangi estuary. A smaller memorial plinth becomes hooked up there also. The brig Trial and the schooner Brothers had been attacked on the 20 August 1815 in Mercury Bay, whilst several sailors had been killed.