Royal Bay is 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 ...

, wide and indenting , entered between Cape Charlotte and Cape Harcourt along the north coast of

South Georgia South Georgia is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around east of the Falkland Islands. ...

. Like other parts of the archipelago, many birds breed here, including

king penguin The king penguin (''Aptenodytes patagonicus'') is the second largest species of penguin, smaller than but somewhat similar in appearance to the emperor penguin. King penguins mainly eat lanternfish, squid, and krill. On foraging trips, king pen ...

gentoo penguin The gentoo penguin ( ) (''Pygoscelis papua'') is a penguin species (or possibly a species complex) in the genus ''Pygoscelis'', most closely related to the Adélie penguin (''P. adeliae'') and the chinstrap penguin (''P. antarcticus''). The earl ...

s, and blue-eyed cormorants.

History

Royal Bay was discovered and named by 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 ...

in 1775. In 1882 a German group of the

International Polar Year Investigations The International Polar Years (IPY) are collaborative, international efforts with intensive research focus on the polar regions. Karl Weyprecht, an Austro-Hungarian naval officer, motivated the endeavor in 1875, but died before it first occurred ...

expedition under Schrader was sent out to observe the

transit of Venus A transit of Venus takes place when Venus passes directly between the Sun and the Earth (or any other superior planet), becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus is visible as ...

and was stationed at Royal Bay. They were based on the north shore of the bay in 1882–83. The group came in on the

steam corvette Steam frigates (including screw frigates) and the smaller steam corvettes, steam sloops, steam gunboats and steam schooners, were steam-powered warships that were not meant to stand in the line of battle. The first such ships were paddle stea ...

which was the first powered vessel to reach South Georgia. Moltke Harbour, a one-mile wide bay on the northwest side of Royal Bay is named after it.USGS GNIS: Moltke Harbour
/ref>

References

* Stonehouse, B (ed.) ''Encyclopedia of Antarctica and the Southern Oceans'' (2002, ) Bays of South Georgia {{SouthGeorgia-geo-stub

History

See also

References