South Georgia, Part II

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 white petrel 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!