Hughes Bay is the 42 km wide bay indenting for 20 km Danco Coast

Danco Coast

Danco Coast is that portion of the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula between Cape Sterneck and Cape Renard. This coast was explored in January and February 1898 by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition under Gerlache, who named it for Lieutenant Emile Danco who died on the expedition....

 on the west side of Graham Land

Graham Land

Graham Land is that portion of the Antarctic Peninsula which lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee and the US Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names, in...

, Antarctica, lying south of Chavdar Peninsula

Chavdar Peninsula

Chavdar Peninsula is a 10-km wide peninsula projecting 13 km in northwest direction from Graham Land on the Antarctic Peninsula in Antarctica. Bounded by Curtiss Bay to the northeast, Hughes Bay to the southwest and Gerlache Strait to the northwest...

 and north of Pefaur (Ventimiglia) Peninsula

Pefaur (Ventimiglia) Peninsula

Pefaur Peninsula is the heavily glaciated peninsula projecting 11 km in northwest direction from Danco Coast on the west side of Antarctic Peninsula. Bounded by Hughes Bay to the northeast and Charlotte Bay to the south, and separated from Brabant Island to the northwest by Gerlache Strait.The...

, and entered between Cape Sterneck

Cape Sterneck

Cape Sterneck is a bold, black cliff on a projecting point of Chavdar Peninsula forming the north side of the entrance to Hughes Bay, on the west coast of Antarctic Peninsula...

 and Cape Murray

Cape Murray, Graham Land

Cape Murray is a cape forming the western end of Murray Island just off the west coast of Pefaur Peninsula in Graham Land, Antarctica, separating Hughes Bay to the northeast from Charlotte Bay to the south. First charted by the 1897-99 Belgian Antarctic Expedition under Lt. Adrien de Gerlache, and...

.

Hughes Bay was the first locality on the Antarctic mainland the man ever set foot on, namely sealers from the US 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...

 vessel Cecilia under Captain John Davis

John Davis (sealer)

Captain John Davis was a seal hunter from Connecticut, USA who captained men who may have been the first to have set foot on Antarctica on 7 February 1821 shortly after the first sightings of the new continent by Fabian von Bellingshausen, Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, Edward Bransfield and Nathaniel...

 landed at the bay on February 7, 1821.

The name has appeared on maps for over 100 years, and commemorates Edward Hughes, master of the Sprightly. Sprightly was a sealing vessel, owned by the London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 whaling company Samuel Enderby & Sons

Samuel Enderby & Sons

Samuel Enderby & Sons was a whaling and sealing company based in London, England, founded circa 1775 by Samuel Enderby . The company encouraged their captains to combine exploration with their business activities, and sponsored several of the earliest expeditions to the subantarctic, Southern Ocean...

, which explored in this area in 1824-25.