Blue Whale Harbour () is a small, sheltered anchorage entered west-southwest of Cape Constance, along the north coast of

South Georgia Island 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. ...

. It was charted in 1930 by

Discovery Investigations The Discovery Investigations were a series of scientific cruises and shore-based investigations into the biology of whales in the Southern Ocean. They were funded by the British Colonial Office and organised by the Discovery Committee in London, ...

personnel, along with its constituent features. It is named for the

blue whale The blue whale (''Balaenoptera musculus'') is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known ever to have existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can ...

, a commercially important species which was once widely distributed in polar and subpolar waters; numbers are now very small.

Overview

The

headland A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, Jo ...

Brow Point defines the harbour's westernmost boundary. Shelter Point projects into the west side of the harbour. Blue Whale Mountain rises to at the west side of Brow Point. Clarity Point is a headland on the east shore of the harbor. The feature was charted and initially named Clear Point by DI personnel. The name was amended by the

United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) and ...

(UKAPC) in 1991 to avoid duplication of Clear Point at

Leith Harbor Leith Harbour (), also known as Port Leith, was a whaling station on the northeast coast of South Georgia, established and operated by Christian Salvesen Ltd, Edinburgh. The station was in operation from 1909 until 1965. It was the largest o ...

Stromness Bay Stromness Bay is a bay wide, entered between Cape Saunders and Busen Point on the north coast of South Georgia. Stromness Bay, like Leith Harbour takes its name from a location in Scotland, Stromness, on the Orkney Mainland. This is partially b ...

. Cone Point marks the east side of the entrance to the harbour. The name appears to be first used on a 1931

British Admiralty The Admiralty was a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom that was responsible for the command of the Royal Navy. Historically, its titular head was the Lord High Admiral of the ...

chart.

References

Ports and harbours of South Georgia {{SouthGeorgia-geo-stub