Hope Bay

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Map of the Antarctic Peninsula and associated islands, showing Hope Bay (A)

Hope Bay (Spanish: Bahía Esperanza) on Trinity Peninsula, is 5 km (3 mi) long and 3 km (2 mi) wide, indenting the tip of Antarctic Peninsula and opening on Antarctic Sound.

The Bay was discovered on January 15, 1902 by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition under Otto Nordenskiöld, who named it in commemoration of the winter spent there by J. Gunnar Andersson, S.A. Duse, Toralf Grunden, and José María Sobral 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 by members of the expedition can still be seen.

The old British Base "D" was established here in 1945. It partially burned in 1948 and 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.

Esperanza Base, Hope Bay, December 2004

The present Argentine Base (Esperanza) was established in 1952. It has an extensive military presence by Argentine Army and includes a "colony" with families. The base installations have displaced part of a penguin rookery. The first birth of any human being in Antarctica occurred here in 1978, when Arturo Palma was born to the wife of an Argentine naval officer.

Hope Bay/Esperanza was also the scene of the first ever shots fired in anger in Antarctica in 1952 when 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.

[edit] References

Antarctica. Sydney: Reader's Digest, 1985, p. 156-157.
Child, Jack. Antarctica and South American Geopolitics: Frozen Lebensraum. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1988, p. 73.
Lonely Planet, Antarctica: a Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit, Oakland, CA: Lonely Planet Publications, 1996, 302-304.
Stewart, Andrew, Antarctica: An Encyclopedia. London: McFarland and Co., 1990 (2 volumes), p. 469.
U.S. National Science Foundation, Geographic Names of the Antarctic, Fred G. Alberts, ed. Washington: NSF, 1980.