In the afternoon we head north to Royal Bay, a first time landing for the ship and check out our first elephant seals. The mature males are already out at sea, however their younger counterparts are still impressive yet disgusting massive ellipses of blubber and snot. Having said this, they still have a much more peaceful nature than the fur seals.
The weather shadow remained decent in the morning and so we landed at Jason Harbour. Here we saw the usual suspects: fur and elephant seals, Kings and Gentoo penguins. There is also a hut that was first intended to be the start of a whaling station, but was decided against. The hut then acted as a postal station and contains a wooden table with sailor’s initials from ships in the 1920s.
Grytviken is the largest settlement on the island with approximately 30 permanent residents- mainly research and museum staff. This is the location of a whaling station that commenced in 1904 and was closed in the 1960s. The whaling station is set on a beach with tall, jagged and often snow covered peaks, that rise nearly immediately from the water. The station is a museum that one can walk around, and learn about the whaling era and processing methods. The town housed 450 men that worked 12 hour days, 7 days a week. 175 000 whales were processed here and at peak up to 25 whales were processed in a single day! When numbers started declining the whalers believed that they could take a few years break and come back for further whaling- but the whales were never going to recover at such rates- and this ended the whaling era.
The whaling station is not the only drawcard here, it is also steeped in other history and is the final resting place of Sir Ernest Shackleton and Wild, as well as whalers who died from industrial injuries.
Today we learn about the work of the South Georgia Heritage Trust (SGHT). They have worked tirelessly over the last few years to eradicate rats from the island and have succeeded!! Rats were feasting on bird eggs and thus ruining the bird populations- especially of the pipette. Pipettes are the most southerly existing song birds, and have recovered dramatically over the last two seasons… which everyone is very excited about! I have included the link to SGHT if anyone would like to make a donation to this work.
