The bay was named in May 1801 by French explorer
Nicolas Baudin, after his ship,
Géographe. The bay is a wide curve of coastline extending from
Cape Naturaliste past the towns of
Dunsborough and
Busselton, ending near the city of
Bunbury. The bay is protected from the rough seas of the Indian Ocean by Cape Naturaliste (named after
Naturaliste), which makes it a popular destination for recreational boaters. The bay is extremely shallow, limiting the entrance of large ships. To alleviate this problem the two-kilometre-long
Busselton Jetty, the longest in the
southern hemisphere, was built.
The north west part of the bay is the location of a number of
surf breaks.
The environment of the drainage systems into the bay, and the bay itself have attracted research and studies.[1][2][3]
Notes
^Coastal Zone Inquiry (Australia); Western Australia. Department of Planning and Urban Development; Australia. Resource Assessment Commission; Western Australia. Coastal Management Co-ordinating Committee; Meridian Environmental (1993), Western Australian case study report : study area: Geographe Bay, The Commission,
ISBN978-0-644-28610-7
^Geographe Bay Land and Sea Conference (1994 : Busselton, W.A.); Geographe Bay Advisory Committee (W.A.) (1994),
Geographe Bay Land and Sea Conference 1994, The Committee, retrieved 28 November 2013{{
citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link)
^Western Australia. Ministry for Planning; Geographe Bay Advisory Committee (1995), Geographe Bay integrated catchment management strategy (draft) : guidelines for people managing Geographe Bay and its catchment area, Western Australian Planning Commission,
ISBN978-0-7309-5357-9
Fornasiero, Jean; Monteath, Peter and West-Sooby, John. Encountering Terra Australis: the Australian voyages of Nicholas Baudin and Matthew Flinders, Kent Town, South Australia, Wakefield Press, 2004.
ISBN1-86254-625-8
Frank Horner, The French Reconnaissance: Baudin in Australia 1801–1803, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1987
ISBN0-522-84339-5.
Marchant, Leslie R. French Napoleonic Placenames of the South West Coast, Greenwood, WA. R.I.C. Publications, 2004.
ISBN1-74126-094-9
Only places with the name still in use in either the original or
anglicised version are listed above. Many names have been anglicised; for these the original French name appears in brackets.