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What's the difference between a harbor and a bay?

B

BURNROPE

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I was in Australia recently. Sydney Harbor and San Francisco Bay seem very similar to me. They both have rivers flowing into them, a narrow opening to the ocean and ship traffic. There has to be a BARF genius that can splain the difference.
 
The dictionary wasn't much help. In theory a bay is smaller, but they both seemed about the same size.
 
BURNROPE said:
The dictionary wasn't much help. In theory a bay is smaller, but they both seemed about the same size.
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This better: ??? http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-among-gulfs-bays-harbors-and-coves

A bay is an area of water mostly surrounded or otherwise demarcated by land. Bays therefore differ from gulfs in that they can also be an arm of a smaller body of water than a sea, e.g. a small inlet in a lake or pond.


A harbor is any place, natural or artificial, where ships can seek shelter from stormy weather. A harbor is differentiated from gulfs, bays, and coves in that the three describe geographical features, while a harbor is defined by its function (or its ability to support that function). A harbor may therefore be located in one of those areas; it may also be artificially constructed.
 
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A bay doesn't have to harbor ships. A harbor does. Thus you can have a harbor within a Bay but not the obverse.
 
The terms will be interchangeable, by users of the word. It's not carved in stone.

I include Harbors that are very small, a divot in the shore line that has an entrance..
Once the boat is in that harbor, it is protected, from the storm.

Bay, I associate with, more open to the sea.

But, just like punctuation, it's one of those things, I just don't give a big rats about.
 
You gotta love BARF. Pose a question and you'll get a spectrum of nswers. Thanks for responding. I have a better understanding now.
 
louemc said:
The terms will be interchangeable, by users of the word. It's not carved in stone.

I include Harbors that are very small, a divot in the shore line that has an entrance..
Once the boat is in that harbor, it is protected, from the storm.

Bay, I associate with, more open to the sea.

But, just like punctuation, it's one of those things, I just don't give a big rats about.
Click to expand...

I can't agree with ya Lou. I was one of those users on various commercial fishing boats for the better part of a decade-these places had names and that's what we used.

We would never steam to Boston Bay or Cape Cod Harbor, as those places didn't exist-they were marked on the chart those are the names we used. We would go from Saquatucket Harbor over to Cape Cod Bay-at no point would we ever interchange those words, as those places didn't exist.

Maritime navigation is not something done in a slipshod manner.

Always remember that Timid Virgins Make Dull Company at Weddings.
 
:laughing
When I want to know something about the English language, whether it be spelling, punctuation, grammar, or word definitions, I always turn to louemc first. :thumbup
 
Bay freight makes the best fucking tools in the world!

I put Old Harbor seasoning on my crabs because I am from MD.

Michael Harbor is the best director, and I love his movies, although they are little boring visually.
 
you can have a harbor in a lake or a bay, you can't have a bay in a lake nor a lake in a bay.
 
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