Point_Venus

Point Venus

Point Venus

Peninsula in Mahina, Tahiti

Point Venus is a peninsula on the north coast of Tahiti, the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia. It is in the commune of Mahina, approximately 8 km east of the capital, Pape'ete. It lies at the northeast end of Matavai Bay.

Point Venus is marked in this annotated Landsat image
Point Venus Lighthouse, Tahiti (LMS, 1869, p.)[1]
The lighthouse in 2017

History

A primary objective of James Cook's first voyage, in Endeavour, was to observe the 1769 Transit of Venus from the South Pacific. Tahiti, recently visited by Samuel Wallis in Dolphin, was chosen for the observations. Cook anchored in Matavai Bay on 12 April 1769 and established an observatory, and a fortified camp called "Fort Venus", at Te Auroa, which they named "Point Venus".[2]

17°29′44″S 149°29′40″W

References

  1. [1]
    London Missionary Society, ed. (1869). Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society. London: John Snow & Co. p. 12. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  2. [2]
    Salmond, Anne (2010). Aphrodite's Island. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 141, 147, 150. ISBN 9780520261143.


Stub icon

This French Polynesia-related geography article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Point_Venus, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.