It has been a few days since my last update, but something rather exciting happened today. At first light this morning land was spotted. It had been 17 days without seeing land since we left Christmas Island on January 1st. While we currently don't know what island we landed on, Captain Cook hopes we will establish that soon.

However, we learned fairly quickly that this chain of islands isn't uninhabited as we met a group of natives later that day. We hadn't been anchored for more than a couple hours when a couple of canoes were spotted heading toward the Resolution. Each canoe had about 3-4 indigenous males inside them.

While communicating with them proved rather challenging at first, we soon discovered that part of their language was based on the Tahitian dialect of Otaheite. Once we made that connection, communicating with them became easier, but still rather difficult overall. Using the Otaheite dialect, we were able to ask them about various foods such as hogs, breadfruit, and yams. From what we could tell, the natives seemed to indicate that all of the above foods could be found on the island.

The next morning, Captain Cook took me and a couple other men to go ashore where we were almost instantly greeted by natives from the same group of natives as yesterday. Communication was still largely unsuccessful, but we were able to make some progress. After an unsuccessful attempt to exchange names with one another, some of the natives actually boarded our ship and explored it. Most stayed on land at a watchful distance, but those that boarded were infatuated with our ship.

It's times like these that I really wished I could have properly communicated with them. I understood what these natives were feeling and I wished that I could somehow tell them that. I knew from personal experience what it was like to stand on this magnificent vessel for the first time and to be mesmerized by her. Just 4 years prior, I had stood where the natives now stood. I had left the safety of my family's farm to explore the unknown as the natives had left the safety of their beaches to explore the unknown as well.

The natives were increasingly fascinated by the iron components of the ship. Almost the entire time they were aboard the Resolution, they were entranced by the areas that were made of high concentrations of iron like the cabin windows, the iron hooks, and the trap doors. Due to their fascination with iron, I can infer that this material was seemingly important and valuable to their culture in some regard.

Overall, I'd say that our relations with the natives had grown in a positive way. I am increasingly eager to learn more about them and Captain Cook has given me special permission to lead a landing party tomorrow, in hopes of discovering their permanent village. I would also like to determine the name of the island tomorrow when interacting with the natives, if at all possible.

The natives mentioned the word "Hawaii" frequently, I wonder if I'll ever learn what that means.

I will continue to update this log as more notable events happen.

- J. Taylor 1776
Island Sketch by John Webber