November
3 Investigator entered the Gulf of Carpentaria, and Flinders found a suitable place for careening the ship. As the carpenters worked they found many of her timbers rotten, and suggested the ship might founder in a gale with strong seas running. Their formal report concluded with the warning, from the state to which the ship seems now to be advanced, it is our joint opinion that in twelve months there will scarcely be a sound timber in her, but that, if she remain in fine weather and no accident happen, she may run six months longer without much risk.
Flinders saw a return to Port Jackson was necessary, and while he had planned to make so accurate an investigation of the shores of Terra Australis that no future voyage to this country should be necessary … and, with the blessing of God, nothing of importance should have been left for future discoverers upon any part of these extensive coasts; but with a ship incapable of encountering bad weather ... I knew not how to accomplish the task.
Faced with the prospect of storms associated with the monsoon if he tried to return the way he had come, Flinders decided to continue his exploration of the gulf until the monsoon had passed, and then make for Port Jackson round the west coast of Australia or, if that wasn't feasible, to run for safetyin the East Indies. In the meantime all that the carpenters could do was to replace some of the worst planking and caulk the bends.
Flinders remained in the Gulf until the beginning of March. He found the Cape Van Diemen marked on Dutch charts was an island rather than a projection from the mainland and named it Mornington Island, after the Governor-General of India. He named the group of islands surrounding Mornington the Wellesley Islands after the same nobleman (Richard, Earl of Mornington, afterwards the Marquess Wellesley, Governor-General of India from 1798 to 1805.) The Sir Edward Pellew group in the south-west of the gulf, was named after a British admiral.