Ocean Harbour
Ocean Harbour is a deeply indented bay on the north coast of South Georgia which is entered a mile and a half west-north-west of Tijuca Point. It was an active whaling station between 1909 and 1920, in the days when South Georgia was the most active island in the world for whaling stations.
Name
In 1922 the German Antarctic Expedition of 1911-12 surveyed the area under Filchner and used the names New Fortune Bay and Neufortuna Bay for the bay, probably after the Fortuna, a Norwegian whaling vessel which participated in establishing the first permanent whaling station at Grytviken in 1904-05. Following a survey of the island in 1951-52, the South Georgia Survey reported that the feature was known to whalers and sealers as Ocean Harbour, a name derived from the Ocean Whaling Company which at one time had a station there. The name Ocean Harbour is approved for this feature on the basis of local usage, and also to avoid confusion of the name New Fortuna Bay with Fortuna Bay, only 22 miles to the north-west.
History
Old sealing trypots can still be seen here, and there is also the wreck of the Bayard here, a 1,300-ton, 220 ft long, iron hulled boat, built in 1864. It was moored at the cooling station at 1911, when a gale blew her loose across the bay. Ocean Harbour was the site of the first introduction of reindeer to South Georgia by Norwegian whaling entrepreneur Carl Anton Larsen and his brother in November 1911.
Ocean Harbour has a small cemetery with eight graves including the oldest known grave on the island, that of Frank Cabrial (1820) of the sealer Francis Allen. The marker has gone though some of the others are still marked.
References
Gazetteer and Map of the BAT and SGSSI: Ocean Harbour
