Forsters Passage () () is a body of water between

Bristol Island Bristol Island is an uninhabited island in the South Sandwich Islands, an archipelago in the Southern Ocean. The island is almost entirely surrounded by ice cliffs and largely covered with ice. It features both the oldest rocks of this archipela ...

and

Southern Thule Southern Thule is a group of the three southernmost islands in the South Sandwich Islands in the southern Atlantic Ocean: Bellingshausen, Cook, and Thule (Morrell). It is a largely submerged volcano of which only the three islands emerge above ...

in the

South Sandwich Islands The South Sandwich Islands () are a chain of uninhabited volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. They are administered as part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The chain lies in the sub-A ...

. In 1775, a British expedition under

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

gave the name "Forster's Bay", after John R. Forster, a naturalist with the expedition, to what appeared to be a

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

in essentially this position. The "bay" was determined to be a strait by a Russian expedition under

Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen Faddey Faddeyevich Bellingshausen or Fabian Gottlieb Benjamin von Bellingshausen ( – ) was a Russian cartographer, explorer, and naval officer of Baltic German descent, who attained the rank of admiral. He participated in the first Russi ...

in 1820.

References

Straits of Antarctica Landforms of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands {{SouthGeorgia-geo-stub