Baffin Bay is a very large body of water, approximately 1,130 km (700 miles) from north to south, connecting the
Arctic Ocean in the north with the
Atlantic Ocean in the south. Baffin Bay is primarily bounded by
Greenland to the east,
Ellesmere Island to the northwest, and
Baffin Island to the southwest. The bay is largely impassable to ships for much of the year due to ice, and even when parts of the bay are clear ships must beware of a great number of treacherous
icebergs carried south through the bay by the
Labrador Current.
Baffin Bay was first entered by British explorer John Davis in 1585, but he did not stay long enough to recognize that it was in fact a bay. The bay derives its current name from another British explorer, William Baffin, who much more fully explored the bay in 1616.