Category: South Georgia

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Antarctica South Georgia

South Georgia 4

On our last day we have two stops, the first being Ocean Harbour. Little remains of an old whaling station and the elephant and fur seals are taking over again. There is the wreck of the Bayard, which now hosts a breeding colony of blue eyed shags/ cormorants in the tussock grass that is growing on board.

St Andrews Bay is the largest King Penguin colony in South Georgia with approximately 170 000 breeding pairs and their chicks!! The beach is 3km long with penguins from one end to the other and a dramatic back drop of 3 glaciers and glacial valleys is home to this beautiful species. The thousands of dots on the photos are penguins!!! The penguins standing in the river are at different stages of moulting- being close to the river for to cool down and have a water source.   Blessed with beautiful weather and some free time we can soak in the views from a short walk up a hill and are just spell bound by the extensive beauty of the Bay! This was the most magical place that we could have finished our South Georgia trip on, but we have many nautical miles before the South Shetlands- and more specifically Elephant Island… so we head off even further down south.

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Antarctica South Georgia

South Georgia 3

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.

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Antarctica South Georgia

South Georgia 2

As soon as we are finished with the zodiac cruise we are off towards the south of the island- to get some protection from the upcoming wind, in the island’s wind shadow. We do this in Cooper’s Bay. We have a pre –breakfast cruise to see the second crested penguin species of the trip- Macaronis!! It’s rare to see these penguins as they breed on steep and rather inaccessible mountainsides.  A penguin has got to eat though-and we catch them waddling down the hill from their rookery, and into the ocean. To top off this glorious morning we also spot a leopard seal- and take in its power and size.

As the winds pick up, so do the wave heights on our way to Drygalski Fjord and the wind howls through the funnel created by the fjord. The views of the glaciers that terminate in and above the fjord are breathtaking though and we all brave the winds and hang around outside on the bow. The fjord terminates with three glaciers coming into its waters. The ship stops here for a while for us to soak it in, and as we turn around the winds start to die off a bit and the sun appears, which adds another dimension and brilliant blue skies too. It is in this fjord that one is most likely to spot the snow petrel, as it is their prime breeding ground. These are elegant, completely white birds. We spot several pretty quickly, but one flies just above my head, and with the sun shining on it from above makes it looks just like an angel!

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Antarctica South Georgia

South Georgia 1

We leave Stanley at 19h00, and head towards South Georgia. It should have taken us a couple of days to get there; however high seas and strong winds slowed progress, and we added nearly a day.  The time on board is spent eating…eating and more eating interspersed by interesting lectures and thorough biosecurity cleaning procedures prior to our first zodiac landing on the island.

Our first stop is Prion Island- best known for its wandering albatross colony. There is a boardwalk built to a couple of look outs and we are lucky enough that one albatross has chosen to nest right by the boardwalk. Some of the local fur seals were not happy to see visitors and attempted to chase us away!! The wandering albatross is the largest albatross with wings spanning up to 3.5m!! Its special to see them gliding around –and even a couple’s mating display.

Our second stop in the Bay of Isles is Salisbury Plains. This forever-expanse of beach with jagged mountain tops and glaciers as a backdrop; is home to the second largest colony of King Penguins. They are beauties to behold- their sharp, crisp yellow and orange colouring is so striking. We have a winding walk through the plains, in between the angry fur seals and inquisitive Kings, towards the main colony.

There are many penguins that are moulting- these penguins cannot fish as their feathers are not waterproof at this stage. This means that they attempt to remain as still as possible to conserve energy during the moulting- which takes up to 2 months to complete.

A sea of crisp coloured Kings great us by the main colony and dotted in among them are brown fur balls – these are the penguin chicks, which are now pretty large. Some are moulting and gaining their first waterproof feathers. The chicks are nothing like their royal looking parents- and many years ago, the first explorers thought that they were a different species!

As we are making the best of the beautiful sunny weather we have on our first day- we do a third activity for the day- before we “run away” from the storm that’s hot on our heels. This is a zodiac cruise around Prince Olav Harbour- one of the most recent whaling stations on the island. It opened in 1904. As we cruise around we get some history of whaling and sealing in the area and note the sheer magnitude of this operation by the size of this station. Before returning to the ship we visit a seal colony that has a male “blondie” – a light beige coloured seal. 1/1000 fur seals are this colour- and being the dominant male on this beach he has also sown some of those seeds around!