In June 1770 Captain Cook's Endeavour was nearing the end of its long northward course along the east coast of Australia when the ship hit a coral reef off northern Queensland, stuck fast, and began to leak. Cook managed to get his ship off the reef, but as it came free water poured into the damaged hull. At the mouth of the Endeavour River Cook found a place to beach his ship and patch her up, before attempting to find a way through in charted reefs to safe waters. Cook's own account of his hazardous passage through the shoals of the Great Barrier Reef is one of the most dramatic chapters in maritime exploration.