Encounter Bay

Encounter Bay
Encounter Bay from Port Elliot, South Australia
Encounter Bay Location in South Australia
Location	Fleurieu and Sir Richard Peninsulas, South Australia
Coordinates	35°34′40″S 138°35′35″E / 35.57778°S 138.59306°E / -35.57778; 138.59306Coordinates: 35°34′40″S 138°35′35″E / 35.57778°S 138.59306°E / -35.57778; 138.59306
Type	Bay
Primary inflows	River Murray
Basin countries	Australia
Islands	Granite Island, Pullen Island, Seal Island, Wright Island
Settlements	Victor Harbor Goolwa, Middleton & Port Elliot

Encounter Bay is a bay on the south central coast of South Australia about 100 kilometres (62 mi) south of the Adelaide city centre. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his encounter on 8 April 1802 with Nicolas Baudin, the commander of the Baudin expedition of 1800-03. It is the site of both the mouth of the River Murray and the regional city of Victor Harbor. It is one of four ‘historic bays’ located on the South Australian coast.

There are at least two definitions of the bay’s extent. Firstly, an American source states that Newland Head is its westerly extremity while the mouth of the River Murray is the easterly extremity. Secondly, Australian authorities consider the bay’s extent consists of all of the sea north of a line running east from the southern tip of Rosetta Head to the Younghusband Peninsula. Encounter Bay is one of four bays on the South Australian coast considered by the Australian government to be a ‘historic bay’ under the Seas and Submerged Lands Act 1973 and was proclaimed as such in 1987 and again in 2006 and 2016 with the result that the mouth of the bay is on the territorial seas baseline and the waters within the bay are internal waters as per the definition used in United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Traditionally the land of the Ramindjeri clan of the Ngarrindjeri people, the bay's coastline is the site for the following settlements: Victor Harbor, Port Elliot, Middleton and Goolwa. The Murray, Inman and Hindmarsh Rivers drain into the bay.