Flinders, unable to find another vessel suitable…
July 1803 CE
Flinders, unable to find another vessel suitable to continue his exploration, had set sail for England as a passenger aboard HMS Porpoise.
The ship was wrecked, however, on Wreck Reefs, part of the Great Barrier Reef, approximately seven hundred miles (eleven hundred and twenty-seven kilometers) north of Sydney.
Flinders had navigated the ship's cutter across open sea back to Sydney, and arranged for the rescue of the remaining marooned crew.
Flinders now takes command of the twenty-nine-ton schooner Cumberland in order to return to England.