Cumberland West Bay
Cumberland West Bay is a bay forming the western arm of Cumberland Bay, deeply indenting the north coast of South Georgia. It is entered southward of Larsen Point, where the bay is two and a half miles wide, and it extends seven miles in a southwest direction. The West Bay is separated from Cumberland East Bay by the Thatcher Peninsula.
On its southeast shore is Papua Beach.
This bay was first surveyed by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition, 1901–04, who named it "West Bay". It was remapped during 1926–29 by Discovery Investigations personnel and renamed "West Cumberland Bay". The shortened form West Bay was simultaneously used. Following the South Georgia Survey, 1951–52, the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee proposed that the name be altered to 'Cumberland West Bay' alone.
Around the bay
Cumberland West Bay has a complex coastline, many of whose features have been charted and individually named. They are described here beginning at the north on the west coast of the bay, and proceeding southwest.
North-west coast
A headland named Larsen Point forms the west side of the entrance to Cumberland Bay. It was named for Captain Carl Anton Larsen, who visited Cumberland Bay in the Jason in 1893–94. The Crutch is a saddle-shaped col on a ridge, located one and a half nautical miles north-west of Larsen Point. It was charted and descriptively named by DI personnel in the period 1925–1929. Jason Island, named for the ship, is located one nautical mile north of Larsen Point.
Allen Bay is a semi-circular bay half a nautical mile wide, lying one nautical miles west-northwest of Larsen Point in the northern part of Cumberland West Bay. It was charted in 1926 by DI personnel on the RSS Discovery, and was named by them, probably for H. T. Allen, a member of the Discovery Committee at that time.
The next notable feature is Jason Harbour, which itself has a number of named features.
South-west of Jason Harbour, Enten Bay shallowly indents the coast. The name "Entenbucht" (duck bay) seems to have been first used on a 1907 chart of Cumberland Bay by Dr. A. Szielasko, of the Norwegian whaler Fridtjof Nansen, who published an account of his natural history observations made at Cumberland Bay during the previous year. Enten Bay's east side is marked by Doubtful Point. Tweeny Point lies one nautical mile south-west of Doubtful Point. Both of these points were first named on a 1929 British Admiralty chart.
Continuing to the west is another small bay, Carlita Bay. It was initially named 'Horseshoe Bay', probably during the survey of Cumberland West Bay by HMS Dartmouth in 1920. This name was later accepted for a bay close south of Cape George, less than 15 miles away. In 1957, the Antarctic Place-Names Committee renamed the feature after the Carlita, a whale catcher built in 1907 and owned by Larsen's whaling company. Islet Point, first named on the 1929 Admiralty chart for the islet just off the point, marks the east side of the entrance to Carlita Bay.
South-east coast
Mercer Bay, a small bay marked by Geikie Glacier at its head, sits at the south-west end of Cumberland West Bay. The bay appears on a sketch map of Cumberland Bay by Lieutenant S. A. Duse of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition, and is first used on a chart based upon survey work by DI personnel in 1926–30. It was probably named for Lieutenant Commander G. M. Mercer, Royal Naval Reserve, captain of the DI research ship RRS William Scoresby. To the east, Teie Point separates Mercer Bay from Harpon Bay. Teie Point was named by UK-APC for the sailing vessel Teie, owned by Tonsberg Hvalfangeri. To the east of Teie Point is one nautical miles wide Harpon Bay, first mapped by the SAE and named by UK-APC for the cargo vessel Harpon, built in 1897, which had been used by Larsen's company.
Location
- Location map: 54°15’0"S, 36°36’0"W
References
- Gazetteer and Map of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands: Cumberland West Bay
