Curtiss Bay is a bay

Bay

A bay is an area of water mostly surrounded by land. Bays generally have calmer waters than the surrounding sea, due to the surrounding land blocking some waves and often reducing winds. Bays also exist as an inlet in a lake or pond. A large bay may be called a gulf, a sea, a sound, or a bight...

 about 4 nautical miles (7 km) wide, indenting the west coast 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...

 just north 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 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 Andreas on Davis Coast

Davis Coast

Davis Coast is that portion of the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula between Cape Kjellman and Cape Sterneck. It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names for Captain John Davis, the American sealer who claimed to have made the first recorded landing on the continent of...

. The name Bahia Inutil (useless bay) appearing on a 1957 Argentine chart is considered misleading; the bay has been used as an anchorage. The bay was renamed by United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) in 1960 for Glenn Curtiss

Glenn Curtiss

Glenn Hammond Curtiss was an American aviation pioneer and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry. He began his career as a bicycle then motorcycle builder and racer, later also manufacturing engines for airships as early as 1906...

(1878–1930), American aeronautical engineer who pioneered seaplanes from 1911 onward.