One of de Surville’s anchors

One of de Surville’s anchors

In December 1769, as James Cook was rounding the northern tip of the North Island, the French explorer Jean François Marie de Surville was in the same waters. After just missing what would have been an historic meeting with Cook, de Surville anchored in Doubtless Bay. In a storm his ship, the St Jean Baptiste, lost three anchors. Two of them were recovered from the seabed in the 1970s. They are among the oldest relics of early European contact with New Zealand. Here a diver examines one of the anchors on the sea floor.