Carlita Bay is a small bay in the west side of Cumberland West Bay

Cumberland West Bay

Cumberland West Bay is a bay forming the western arm of Cumberland Bay, South Georgia. It is entered southward of Larsen Point, where it is wide, and extends in a southwest direction. This feature was surveyed by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition, 1901–04, who named it West Bay. It was remapped...

, South Georgia, just west of Islet Point

Islet Point

Islet Point is a headland forming the east side of the entrance to Carlita Bay, Cumberland West Bay, on the north coast of South Georgia. The name appears to be first used on a 1929 British Admiralty chart and probably derives from the islet just off the point....

. The feature was earlier named Horseshoe Bay, probably during the survey of Cumberland West Bay by HMS Dartmouth

HMS Dartmouth (1911)

HMS Dartmouth was a Town-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy launched on 14 December 1910 from the yards of Vickers Limited. She was part of the Weymouth subgroup....

 in 1920, but this name was later accepted for a bay close south of Cape George, less than 15 miles (24.1 km) away. A new name, proposed by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee

UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee

The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory and the South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...

 in 1957, has been substituted for the feature now described.

Carlita Bay is named after the Carlita (or Little Carla), a whale catcher built in 1907 and owned by the Compañía Argentina de Pesca

Compañía Argentina de Pesca

Compañía Argentina de Pesca was initiated by the British-Norwegian whaler and Antarctic explorer Carl A. Larsen, and established on 29 February 1904 by three foreign residents of Buenos Aires: the Norwegian consul P. Christophersen, H.H. Schlieper , and E. Tornquist...

, who used it for sealing

Seal hunting

Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. The hunt is currently practiced in five countries: Canada, where most of the world's seal hunting takes place, Namibia, the Danish region of Greenland, Norway and Russia...

and for general transport work.