Turning Basin
Port officials deploy one or more icebreakers each summer, depending upon ice conditions, to cut a circular basin just off Winter Quarters Bay. The basin provides an open area for the cargo ships to depart the ice pier, swing north, and proceed into a ship channel through McMurdo Sound. The channel is opened up by icebreakers annually and can range from 8 to 50 nautical miles (93 km) in length.
Read more about this topic: Winter Quarters Bay
Famous quotes containing the word turning:
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)