Cruise company updates Captain Cook's Pacific maps

Updated October 04, 2012 12:35:07

One of the world's largest cruise ship companies has slowly been re-charting areas of the Pacific that haven't been properly mapped since Captain Cook passed through the region.

During Captain James Cook's three voyages through the Pacific Ocean he charted eastern Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Tonga, Tahiti, Hawaii and many other islands.

Maritime historian Alexander Cook has told Radio Australia's Pacific Beat program Captain Cook's technique was cutting edge, and 200 years on some regions of the Pacific have not been remapped since.

"Maps of areas like Vanuatu were still in widespread use until the end of the 19th century, and there are areas which have not been mapped in great detail since Cook's time," he said.

Anne Sherry, head of cruise ship operator P & O, says looking at some maps of the Pacific, it's clear they are still based on Cook's.

She says as her company looks to expand island destinations within the Pacific, more up to date maps are a necessity.

"The process for mapping is actually quite interesting, because it's done from the air, and it's now done electronically, so can go over a piece of water with a camera on a plane and it will show the depth and it will map everything that's below you," she said.

"Many areas in the Pacific are not properly mapped - never have been - and they do need to be for both safety at our end, but also to ensure...that any sort of cargo ship can transit through their waters."

Areas re-charted by the company include islands around Vanuatu and Fiji.

Alexander Cook says Captain Cook was a a man of science and would've welcomed improvements on his work.

"He was famously inclined to redraw his own maps on subsequent visits, so he had no vested interest in being proved right for the sake of being proved right," he said.

"He wanted precision."

Topics: geography, history, travel-and-tourism, human-interest, pacific

First posted October 04, 2012 06:57:16