Hi all From a 1914 school text book Geography of NSW by J H Taylor there is an interesting section on Broken Bay. <Broken Bay: In Hawkesworth (vol. iii.,p507) we read that at sunset on 7th May 1770, 'Some broken land that seemed to form a bay, bore N 40 degrees W., distant 4 leagues. This bay, which lies in latitude 33 degrees 42', I called Broken Bay." The appropriateness of this name as applied to the Hawkesbury mouth is generally admitted. But, as it is pointed out by the editor of the 'Historical Records of New South Wales': "The rate at which the vessel was travelling, the latitude Cook assigned to the bay, and the relative positions of Bobtany, Port Jackson, and Broken Bay on Cook's chart all prove conclusively that the broken land Cook saw could not have been more than seven or eith miles north of Port Jackson. Further, when Cook saw this broken land bearing N 40 degrees W, he was about 7-1/2 miles from the shore, and not many miles north of Port Jackson. From this position the land at the mouth of the Hawkesbury neither appears broken nor like a bay, and its bearing would be more northerly that that given. From this, and the fact that it would be late at night before the Endeavour got abreast of the Hawkesbury there can be little doubt that the 'broken land like a bay' was the in the vicinity of Narrabeen Lagoon." Governor Phillip, who explored the coast district between Port Jackson and the Hawkesbury, evidently took it for granted that the mouth of the latter was Cook's Broken Bay. Flinders was the first to notice that the position of the Hawkesbury mouth did not agree with that assigned to Broken Bay by Cook's chart.> Rhonda Paine, Central Mangrove.