Before this trip, we were told by a number of people that South Georgia Island would be the highpoint of our trip. It has not disappointed. The island has one of the most spectacular wildlife displays in the world. And to top it off, we had absolutely perfect weather. The pictures I am attaching should tell the story. Before this trip, we were told by a number of people that South Georgia Island would be the highpoint of our trip. It has not disappointed. The island has one of the most spectacular wildlife displays in the world. And to top it off, we had absolutely perfect weather. The pictures I am attaching should tell the story. So feel free to skip the words – but don’t skip the pictures!!
We made four landings on South Georgia Island. First, a bit about our landings. To get to shore, we take rubber zodiacs from the ship. After putting on all of the necessary layers of clothes, including big rubber muck boots that are supplied to us on the boat, and our red rainproof jackets that are also provided to us, along with the waterproof pants that we had to bring ourselves, we go to the 3rd floor aft deck. Our room key is scanned so that they know that we are leaving the boat, and then we talk down stairs to the 2nd floor to get on the zodiacs. On the way, we step into a tub holding about 5 inch deep of antiseptic soapy water so kill any seeds or anything else we might have inadvertently tracked from our previous outings. On the way back, we wash our boots and dip them again in that solution to make sure we don’t track anything from our landing spot to any other island or any other landing spot. These measures are taken to minimize the chance of introducing anything to these locations that are not endemic there.
The first landing South Georgia Island was at Salisbury Plain, a large beach that is the nesting ground for a large colony of king penguins as well as fur seals and elephant seals. To get a good view of the beach and the penguin colony, Franz Lanting suggested we climb the hills that were just inland from the beach. The photos from this location are the images of a beach with a single king penguin in the foreground and the photo of the row of penguins walking along the beach with our boat in the background.
Our next landing was at Fortuna Bay, another part of the island that is home to a large group of king penguins. We arrived on Saturday morning in light to moderate snow. The penguins, along with fur seals, lined the beach for at least a mile and we walked the beach at our leisure. The highlight of this walk was the group of juvenile penguins that were about a mile down the beach. You can easily tell the juveniles – they are the ones that look like round furry brown balls. And you can see the juveniles that are molting these baby feathers and have tuffs of their old feathers along with the feather colors of an adult.
These first two landings were truly spectacular. But if there is another adjective available that tops “spectacular”, it should be applied to our last landing at St. Andrews Bay. This is a broad beach that sits below glacier-covered mountains. It is the home of the largest colony of king penguins in the world – literally half a million of them. We were incredibly fortunate to arrive on this beach in perfect conditions – calm water, beautiful clouds in the sky, and enough cloud covered to provide diffused light for photography. I do not believe it is possible to see any place any more beautiful anywhere.
The beach itself was filled with penguins and sea lions, including some huge males. The males spar for and I have attached a picture of two fighting males. A small river of water cuts through the beach and the penguins line up on the sides, providing beautiful reflections on the water. A hike about a quarter of a mile up a rise behind the beach leads to a view of the rest of the colony that stretches from the beach to the mountains. I have attached a photo of that view.
One other thing we have learned on this trip is to focus on the weather system that flows through the Drake Passage from the west and heads northeast toward South Georgia Island. What we were told is that a major storm is in the passage now, heading our way. The cruise director informed us that the boat could not safely go into that storm – so we either had to forego the last planned day on South Georgia Island and head directly to Antarctica ahead of that storm system, or risk not getting to Antarctica at all. The choice was obvious – we left South Georgia and are now on a 2 ½ day cruise to the Antarctic peninsula.
