Bay

A bay is a body of water connected to an ocean or lake, formed by an indentation of the shoreline. A large bay may be called a gulf, a sea, a sound, or a bight. A cove is a smaller circular or oval coastal inlet with a narrow entrance; some coves may be referred to as bays. A fjord is a particularly steep bay shaped by glacial activity.

Bays can exist as the estuary of a river, as the estuary of the Parramatta River in Australia. Bays may be nested in each other; for example, James Bay is an arm of Hudson Bay. Some large bays, such as the Bay of Bengal and the Hudson Bay, have varied marine geology.

The land surrounding a bay can often block waves and reduce the strength of winds. Thus bays were significant in the history of human settlement because they could provide a safe place for fishing. Later they were important in the development of sea trade as the safe anchorage they provide encouraged their selection as ports.

Formation

There are various ways from which bays can be created. The largest bays have developed as a result of continental drift. As the super-continent Gondwana broke up along curved and indented fault lines, the continents moved apart and the world's largest bays formed. These include the Gulf of Guinea, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Alaska, Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Bengal, which is the largest bay in the world.

Michael Bay

Michael Benjamin Bay (born February 17, 1965) is an American filmmaker. He is known for directing big-budget action films characterized by fast cutting, stylistic visuals and extensive use of special effects, including frequent depiction of explosions. His films, which include the science fiction disaster thriller Armageddon (1998), the epic war film Pearl Harbor (2001) and the science fiction action films in the Transformers film series (2007–present), have grossed over US$5 billion worldwide. He is co-founder of commercial production house The Institute, a.k.a. The Institute for the Development of Enhanced Perceptual Awareness. He is co-chair and part-owner of the digital effects house Digital Domain. He co-owns Platinum Dunes, a production house which has remade horror movies including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), The Amityville Horror (2005), The Hitcher (2007), Friday the 13th (2009) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010).

Despite his considerable success at the international box office, Bay's work is generally held in low esteem by film critics, and his name is often used pejoratively among art-house circles. While films such as The Rock (1996) and Transformers (2007) received generally positive reviews, his three sequels in the Transformers film series were all panned.