Virgohamna

The bay is named after SS Virgo, the vessel of Swedish engineer and explorer Salomon August Andrée's 1896 expedition.

Virgohamna is located across a small strait from Smeerenburg, a historical whaling station on Amsterdam Island about 2 km to the north.

By 1662 the ships from Harlingen had found little use for the station, with the merchants of the original charter offering other Dutch whalers its use for a certain fee.

[2] The German surgeon Friderich Martens visited the (by then) abandoned station in 1671, where he found four buildings still standing, "whereof two were warehouses, in the others they dwelt".

Another station was found on Æøya, a small island on the eastern side of the bay named after the common eiders that live there.