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Spanish Bay is a bay in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. It is located at on the Atlantic coast of Cape Breton Island at the mouth of Sydney Harbour, which forms part of Spanish Bay. The current name for the bay, "Spanish Bay" (sometimes "Spanish Harbour", "Spaniards Bay" or "Port aux Espagnols") appears on maps of the area at least as far back as 1708.
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DescriptionEdit
Spanish Bay opens to the north-west directly onto the southern terminus of the Cabot Strait and so to the North Atlantic. The bay measures approximately 9.2 kilometres (5.7 mi) wide at its mouth, between Point Aconi on Boularderie Island to the north-west, and Low Point on Cape Breton Island to the south-east. Spanish Bay also marks the northern end of the Little Bras d'Or, one of three outlets for the Bras d'Or Lake system.
The bay's shores are mostly bold & rocky with numerous prominent headlands including Point Aconi, High Cape, Alder Point, Merritt Point, Bonar Head, Oxford Point, Black Point, Cranberry Point, McGillivray Point and Petries Point, although there is a 0.75 kilometres (0.47 mi) sandy beach at Florence Beach (Big Pond Beach) and a popular swimming beach at Polar Bear, just to the north of South Bar.
CommunitiesEdit
Communities along the shoreline of Spanish Bay include (from northwest to south to northeast):