Possession Bay is a bay wide on the north coast of South Georgia, an island in the southern

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. It recedes southwest for , and is separated from Cook Bay to the north by Black Head promontory. It is connected to

King Haakon Bay King Haakon Bay, or King Haakon Sound, is an inlet on the southern coast of the island of South Georgia. The inlet is approximately 13 km (8 miles) long and 4 km (2.5 miles) wide. The inlet was named for King Haakon VII of Norway by ...

by Shackleton Gap, a mountain pass.

Geography

Several features in and around Possession Bay have been charted by various Antarctic expeditions. Black Head is a dark, rugged promontory, high, which separates Possession Bay from Cook Bay, to the north. At the head of the bay, Inner Reef extends from the headland Adventure Point on the west side of the bay to Brown Point on the east side. Just south of Adventure Point is Brighton Beach, which extends to Zero Point. Zero Point sits at the north side of Assistance Bay, a small bay within the larger Possession Bay. On the east side of the bay, Alert Point marks the mouth of Purvis Glacier. Outer Moraine Reef extends from Alert Point to Steep Point. Brown Point sits between Steep Point and Glacier Point. The names Inner Reef, Adventure Point, Brown Point, Outer Moraine Reef, Steep Point, and Glacier Point all appear to have first been used on a 1931 British Admiralty chart. Brighton Beach was named 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, ...

(DI) personnel during their 1926–30 expedition, and derives from the beach being as crowded with

fauna Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as ''Biota (ecology ...

as Brighton, a popular seaside resort on the south coast of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. DI personnel named Alert Point for their survey motorboat ''Alert''. The names Zero Point and Black Head appear on charts from the same expedition.

Cook's Second Voyage

It was discovered and named by a British expedition under

Captain James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...

in 1775. Cook made the first known landing on South Georgia in this vicinity. In HMS ''Resolution'' and accompanied by HMS ''Adventure'', Cook made the first

landing Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal, aircraft, or spacecraft returns to the ground. When the flying object returns to water, the process is called alighting, although it is commonly called "landing", "touchdown" or ...

survey Survey may refer to: Statistics and human research * Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population * Survey (human research), including opinion polls Spatial measurement * Surveying, the techniq ...

and mapping of South Georgia. As mandated by the Admiralty, on 17 January 1775 he took possession for

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

and renamed the island "Isle of Georgia" for

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

. German naturalist

Georg Forster Johann George Adam Forster, also known as Georg Forster (, 27 November 1754 – 10 January 1794), was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father, Johann Reinhold ...

, who accompanied Cook during their landings in three separate places at Possession Bay on that day, wrote: :''"Here Captain Cook displayed the British flag, and performed the ceremony of taking possession of those barren rocks, in the name of his Britannic Majesty, and his heirs forever. A volley of two or three muskets was fired into the air."'' Cook himself wrote in his log: :''"The head of the Bay... was terminated by a huge Mass of Snow and ice of vast extent, it shewed a perpendicular clift of considerable height, just like the side or face of an ice isle; pieces were continually breaking from them and floating out to sea. A great fall happened while we were in the Bay; it made a noise like Cannon. The inner parts of the Country was not less savage and horrible... the wild rocks raised their lofty summits until they were lost in the clouds, and the valleys lay buried in everlasting snow. Not a tree was to be seen nor a shrub even big enough to make a tooth-pick."''

References

* Stonehouse, B (ed.) ''Encyclopedia of Antarctica and the Southern Oceans'' (2002, ) {{SGSSI Bays of South Georgia History of South Georgia