Satellite view of Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

A tangled ‘bay’

Bahía Blanca, or White Bay, is the name given to this many-tendrilled body of water as well as the metro area that sits on it. Technically, it’s not a bay but an estuary: a transitional waterway between a river (in this case the Napostá Grande Stream) and its opening to the sea, where saltwater and freshwater mingle to become brackish. The city built on the estuary – just ‘Bahía’ to its 300,000 or so residents – is one of several Argentine ports on the coast of Buenos Aires Province (which, somewhat misleadingly, doesn’t include the national capital Buenos Aires).