Royal Bay is a bay, wide and indenting , entered between Cape Charlotte and Cape Harcourt along the north coast of South Georgia. 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, but somewhat similar in appearance to the emperor penguin. There are two subspecies: ''A. p. patagonicus'' and ''A. p. halli''; ''patagonicus'' ...

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 ea ...

s, and blue-eyed cormorants.

History

Royal Bay was discovered and named by a British expedition under James Cook in 1775. In 1882 a German group of the International Polar Year Investigations expedition under Schrader was sent out to observe the

transit of Venus frameless, upright=0.5 A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a tr ...

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 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
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References

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

History

See also

References