Possession Bay


Possession Bay is a bay wide on the north coast of South Georgia, an island in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It recedes southwest for, and is separated from Cook Bay to the north by Black Head promontory. It is connected to King Haakon Bay 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 personnel during their 1926–30 expedition, and derives from the beach being as crowded with fauna as Brighton, a popular seaside resort on the south coast of England. 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 Cook in 1775. Cook made the first known landing on South Georgia in this vicinity.
The great mariner Captain James Cook in HMS Resolution accompanied by HMS Adventure made the first landing, survey and mapping of South Georgia. As mandated by the Admiralty, on 17 January 1775 he took possession for Britain and renamed the island "Isle of Georgia" for King George III. German naturalist Georg Forster, who accompanied Cook during their landings in three separate places at Possession Bay on that day, wrote:
Cook himself wrote in his log: