Winter Quarters Bay is a small cove of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, located 2,200 miles (3,500 km) due south of New Zealand at 77°50'S. The harbor is the southern-most port in the Southern Ocean and features a floating ice pier for summer cargo operations. The bay is approximately 250m wide and long, with a maximum depth of 33m. The name Winter Quarters Bay refers to Robert Falcon Scott's National Antarctic Discovery Expedition (1901–04) which wintered at the site for two seasons.
A small peninsula on the southern tip of Ross Island forms the natural harbor at Winters Quarters Bay which offers shelter for ships. The harbor has served the few ships able to penetrate McMurdo Sound's 8 ft (2.4 m) to 12 ft (3.7 m) pack ice ever since the Discovery Expedition (1901–04).
Today, two ships assisted by an icebreaker annually arrive at Winter Quarters Bay with fuel and cargo to re-supply the adjacent U.S. McMurdo Station at 77°50′S 166°40′E / 77.833°S 166.667°E / -77.833; 166.667. The cargo operations also support nearby Scott Base and field stations throughout Antarctica. More than 50 years of activity at McMurdo Station has severely polluted the bay.
Read more about Winter Quarters Bay: Bay Water Characteristics, Harbor Pollution, Turning Basin, History, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words winter, quarters and/or bay:
“Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“He stood, and heard the steeple
Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town.
One, two, three, four, to market-place and people
It tossed them down.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“The very dogs that sullenly bay the moon from farm-yards in these nights excite more heroism in our breasts than all the civil exhortations or war sermons of the age.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)