Mark at Saint Andrew’s Bay

We spent two more days on South Georgia Island, making two landings each day along the northern coast of the island to see more penguins and more seals. We have now seen a lot of king penguins and learned how to scare away fur seals that want to get a little too close.

First stop was Grytviken, once the foremost whaling station on South Georgia. During the whaling season, typically October to March, up to 400 men along with the families of senior executives lived in the village, while the population shrunk to just a maintenance crew of under 100 in the long, dark winters. Untold thousands of whales were processed here before overfishing made continued operations uneconomical; the station was closed in 1962.

A highlight of our stop in Grytviken was a 4 kilometer hike up to the top of a ridge

In recent years a significant environmental cleanup was undertaken so that it is now safe for tourists like us to disembark and walk around what is essentially a ghost town with some of the old buildings and equipment, along with an abandoned whaling ship, still standing. There is even a little museum and gift store, along with a cemetery to visit. The cemetery is significant as the final resting place of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, whose attempt to cross Antarctica on foot led to disaster when his ship Endurance was trapped in pack ice.

Some of the old equipment and storage tanks rusting away in Grytviken along with a renovated Lutheran church in the background

Next up after a couple hours at sea was Ocean Harbor, another landing with more seals and penguins. The highlight here was the opportunity to go on a small group hike up to a ridge overlooking the harbor. Not that there was anything great to see or anything particularly interesting about the hike but it was more about a chance to stretch your legs a little more than we have typically been doing.

Here I am high above Ocean Harbor enjoying the view and the fabulous weather

The next day two more days of mostly the same – two stops, more penguins and seals. To be honest I probably would have preferred a trip that was one day shorter and just dropped these last two excursions. It’s great to see these massive groups of penguins and fun to watch the fur seals cavorting around (and the elephant seals just lying around) but after a while the shore excursions just started to all look alike. The good news though is that we’ve had really great weather, or at least great compared to what the weather is more typically like down here. Our shore excursions have been almost completely rain-free and the temperatures have been in the mid-40s. Not bad, so far at least.

Meanwhile life on board is relaxing. Lots of time to read (Mark read Alfred Lansing’s classic story about the Shackleton voyage Endurance at the start of this trip and I’m reading it now…), some time at the gym, lots of good meals. The evening entertainment has been fun if not the quality we get in New York but who can complain if it invites a bunch of mostly old people to get out on the dance floor for a while?

Now it’s on to two days at sea before we make landing on the Antarctic Peninsula.

A massive penguin colony at Saint Andrew’s Bay

Another even larger colony at Gold Harbor, this time with a hanging glacier looming above. We were hoping it would calve while we were there but it didn’t cooperate.

Another view of Gold Harbor

A cute little fur seal. The adult seals were sometimes a little aggressive and we had to learn to intimidate them to scare them back.

Elephant seals cuddling at Grytviken

Some penguins on a spit of land separating the ocean from a pool at the bottom of a glacier

A snowy sheathbill hanging out on deck. I was in a lounge reading and the petrels would come up to the floor-to-ceiling windows and just peck, peck, peck at them. Really annoying!

The elephant seals lie around a lot

Every so often though two of them would stir, roar at each other for a few seconds, and then go back to … this

A fur seal chatting with us

Don’t be fooled – that little rise was maybe three or four feet high

Here we are at the top of our climb near Grytviken

Did I mention penguins? In this case the seal and penguins were actually fighting a bit; ultimately the penguins just walked away.

Life at sea

The view from our cabin

And finally, here is Mark with our Aussie friends Lloyd, Guy, Amanda, & Fiona

Iceberg A23a — until recently the world’s largest iceberg

From the Falkland Islands, we began a long journey mostly eastward to South Georgia island. We spent three full days at sea before reaching this very remote and very rugged corner of the earth. The first two days were pretty uneventful. But on the third day we started to get a taste of what the world is like in the Southern Ocean — especially when we came across Iceberg A23a, a phenomenon of unbelievable scale.

This iceberg broke off from Antarctica in 1986. It was the largest iceberg on earth, with a surface area of 1,500 square miles, about the size of Luxembourg. It weighed a trillion tons. For its first 30 years it settled on the ocean floor near the continent. But in 2020 it freed itself and began moving northward. When it reached the somewhat warmer waters near South Georgia in 2025 it began shrinking and breaking into smaller pieces. These walls are still miles long and stick up 130 feet above the water. And the other 90% remains below the surface. It is mind-boggling to see.

We see lots and lots of icebergs as we approached South Georgia, though none are anything like the scale of A23a

A sunset from our dinner table aboard Le Lyrial

South Georgia — today part of the British overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands — was first discovered in 1675 by Anthony de la Roché, who named it after himself. Captain James Cook was the first to land here, and he renamed it for his king, George III, as Isle of Georgia. For the next century seal hunters frequently came to make their fortunes. And by the early 20th century whaling stations were established. Some 175,000 whales were caught in these waters and brought to processing plants here to extract and export whale oil.

That industry came to an end in the 1960s, only after causing immense damage to the ecosystem of South Georgia — and largely wiping out the whale population. But more recent conservation efforts are a model of success. An eradication program has removed deer, rats, and mice introduced by the whalers. Serious fishing regulation and visitor monitoring have helped restore the native populations of flora, fauna, and marine life. The island is again home to millions of Antarctic fur seals, several hundred thousand King penguins, and tens of millions of native birds. And the whale population is growing healthy again.

So far we’ve spent one day exploring South Georgia, and we’ve got two more days ahead of us. Our first landing was at Salisbury Plain, where we were greeted by huge numbers of fur seals and King penguins. Rain and gloom added to the drama of the landscape but made it rough to take pictures. But eventually the rain let up and made for a much more enjoyable visit. Later that afternoon we went ashore at Fortuna Bay, a beautiful enclosed harbor where the weather was so calm and sunny it was like we were in a radically different place. Everybody had to shed all the layers we were wearing.

We’re got two more days of adventure here in South Georgia, but I’ve got to get these pics posted before they build up too much. You’re going to see a fair number of penguins and seals here, but don’t worry, lots more are coming!

One of the glaciers that wrap around the Salisbury Plain, with thousands of birds and animals to the right, and one of our zodiacs in the center

The welcoming committee as we stepped off the zodiac onto South Georgia at Salisbury Plain

The spectacular landscape of Salisbury Plain

King penguins conferencing

It is surreal to wander around this place among all these creatures

In the background a glacier spills out from the mountains

Mama fur seal and her pup

As we climbed back into the zodiac, these fur seals sure seemed like they wanted to play around with us. Our guides had to work to shoo them away.

The sunshine covered coast at Fortuna Bay

King penguins enjoy the sunshine while fur seals frolic in the water

Basking in the sun

We climbed up to a bit of a viewpoint of all the life teeming below

Looking back to the river lined with penguins, our ship Le Lyrial, and a couple bright white icebergs in the harbor

How cute is that guy?