Hope Bay (Spanish: Bahía Esperanza) (63°23′S 56°59′W) is a bay 3 nautical miles (5.6 km; 3.5 mi) long and 2 nautical miles (3.7 km; 2.3 mi) wide, indenting the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and opening on Antarctic Sound.
Location
Hope Bay is in Graham Land on the north coast of the Trinity Peninsula, which forms the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Hope bay is south of Mount Bransfield and southwest of the Mott Snowfield. It opens onto the Antarctic Sound to the west, and faces Joinville Island. It defines the northeast end of the Tabarin Peninsula. Features and nearby features include, clockwise from the east, Mount Flora, Mount Carroll, Depot Glacier, Mount Cardinal, Mount Taylor, Whitten Peak, Twin Peaks, Arena Glacier and Andersson Nunatak.
Sailing directions The US Defense Mapping Agency's Sailing Directions for Antarctica (1976) describes Hope Bay as follows:
Hope Bay is about 1 2/3 miles wide between Sheppard and Stone Points, Its northwestern and southeastern entrance points, respectively, and indents the coast to a distance of 2 1/2 miles in a southwest direction. The northwestern entrance is a steep wall of ice which, on entering the bay, is backed by steep, sharp-ridged mountains, which trend southwestward forming the walls of a valley. A nunatak with a cliff about 300 feet high, located 2 1/4 miles southwestward of Sheppard Point, is conspicuous. On the opposite side of the bay several lofty pyramidical nunataks are conspicuous on the high, rocky wall. From the southeastern promontory the slopes descend to a low, hilly foreland. At the head of the bay there is a large valley glacier and lateral moraine which terminates at the water's edge in a high vertical cliff. This glacier is fed by the highland ice sheet which extends for some distance southward.Whitten Peak, at the head of the bay, rises to an elevation of 1,465 feet, and is backed by Mount Taylor, 3,274 feet high, flat-topped and icecapped. Mount Flora, 1,708 feet high, stands at the head of the bay, on the eastern side.
History
Hope Bay was discovered on January 15, 1902 by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition (SwedAE) under Otto Nordenskiöld, who named it in commemoration of the winter spent there by J. Gunnar Andersson, S.A. Duse, and Toralf Grunden of his expedition, after his ship (the Antarctic) was crushed by the ice and lost. They were eventually rescued by Argentine corvette Uruguay. The ruins of a stone hut built in January 1903 by members of the Swedish expedition can still be seen; it has been designated a Historic Site or Monument (HSM 39), following a proposal by Argentina and the United Kingdom to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting. Hope Bay was also the scene of the Hope Bay incident when the only shots ever fired in anger in Antarctica took place, in 1952. An Argentine shore party fired a machine gun over the heads of a British Antarctic Survey team unloading supplies from the John Biscoe. The Argentines later extended a diplomatic apology, saying that there had been a misunderstanding and that the Argentine military commander on the ground had exceeded his authority. However, the Argentine party was given a hero's welcome upon its return to Argentina.
Research Stations
Elichiribehety Station
Elichiribehety Station better known in English by its Spanish acronym ECARE is an Uruguay summer research station, established by the Uruguayan Antarctic Institute on December 22, 1997 on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Esperanza Base
Esperanza Base is a permanent, all year-round Argentine research station which was established in 1952. It is operated by the Instituto Antartico Argentino and has an average of 55 inhabitants in winter. The base installations have displaced part of a penguin rookery.
Station D The old British Station D was established here in 1945 which was occupied by 13 people in the austral winter. It partially burned on November 8, 1948, with the loss of two lives. A new hut was built on February 4, 1952 in a new place and took the name of Trinity House, it was closed in 1964. On December 8, 1997 the British Antarctic Survey transferred the base to Uruguay, who renamed it Teniente Ruperto Elichiribehety Uruguayan Antarctic Scientific Station (ECARE).
Important Bird Area The bay has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports one of the largest Adélie penguin colonies in Antarctica with around 125,000 pairs. Other birds nesting at the site include gentoo penguins, brown skuas, Antarctic terns, Wilson's storm-petrels, kelp gulls and snowy sheathbills.
Northern features
Features around the north entrance to the bay include, from west to east,
Andersson Nunatak 63°22′S 57°00′W. A nunatak 1 nautical mile (1.9 km; 1.2 mi) west of Sheppard Point, standing above the coastal ice cliffs on the north shore of Hope Bay. Discovered by Johan Gunnar Andersson's party of the SwedAE which wintered at Hope Bay in 1903. Named for Andersson by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) following their survey of the area in 1945.
Sheppard Nunatak 63°22′S 56°59′W. A conical nunatak 60 metres (200 ft) high which stands close north of Sheppard Point, the north side of the entrance to Hope Bay. This area was first explored by a party of the SwedAE 1901-04. The nunatak was charted in 1945 by the FIDS, and named by them for its association with Sheppard Point.
Sheppard Point 63°22′S 56°58′W. A point marking the north side of the entrance to Hope Bay, at the northeast end of Antarctic Peninsula. Discovered by a party under J. Gunnar Andersson of the SwedAE, 1901–04, who wintered at Hope Bay in 1903. Named by the FIDS for R. Sheppard, Master of the Eagle who, in February 1945, landed the party which established a FIDS scientific station at Hope Bay.
Contact Point 63°23′S 56°59′W. A small rock point close west of Sheppard Point on the north side of Hope Bay. The feature was first charted as an island by the SwedAE, 1901–04, but was surveyed by the FIDS in 1955 and proved to be a point. So named by FIDS because greywacke, tuff and diorite were found to be exposed on or very close to this point. Such contacts had not previously been recorded and they were important for the interpretation of the geology of Tabarin Peninsula.
Western features Nearby features to the west of the head of the bay include, from west to east,
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