South Georgia

Today has been the first of two sea days. The seas have been rough for 24 hours now. We are on our way to Elephant Island and tonight a few of the waves in the dining room were like those in "A Perfect Storm." We knew that there would be payoff for the magnificent weather and bathtub like water we had since leaving Ushuaia. We have had beautiful sea days, 2 great days in the Falklands and three lovely days in South Georgia and our team said rarely have they experienced weather as good as ours. We had tons of layers packed of long underwear - heavy weight, mid weight and light weight and enough toe and foot warmers to last us an entire winter. I just used one pack yesterday for our zodiac ride, but probably didn't need them.

I really didn't know much about this part of the world and that was part of the attraction. However, having read the trip reports on LCT and reading others' remarks that it was the trip of a lifetime, it whetted our desire to add it to our bucket list. Ngaire had said that we mustn't take this trip without ensuring that South Georgia was part of our itinerary. I really never understood why but went along with her recommendation. Most trips to Antarctica do not include South Georgia and this is truly a special and historic place.

For those of you who may not remember here is a brief recap of the Antarctic story. The explorer, Shackleton, set sail from England to Antarctica, but his ship, the Endurance, was grounded on an ice flow in the southern seas where we now are. He and his men set up a camp on an ice flow drifting 600 miles towards Antarctica and eventually set sail in small life boats in wet clothes that had turned to icy armor. They were confined to the boats day and night in -22 degree weather. Sadly, they found the current had carried them back 50 miles. Their only hope was to go to Elephant Island. It is such a harsh environment, our crew has told us that no zodiac has been able to to go ashore for the past 10 years (!). So, it was remarkable that they made it alive. They did and set up camp there.

But, there was no chance of rescue. Shackleton, set out again for rescue for his men. He set off for South Georgia. He was doing our trip in reverse and would visit the whaling stations we had just visited in order to get help. The rest is history. He climbed the Alps of the south without any proper equipment ...over 30 miles...without maps and just equipped with a compass...he climbed the totally unchartered interior 2000 foot mountains and was able to secure the help and rescue all of his 27 men.

Our trip retraces somewhat the 1916 journey of these amazing explorers. Of course we do this in the summer, in a lovely, modern cruise ship, with modern navigational equipment. When we hit some swells last night, folks excused themselves from dinner early and went to their rooms. Some activities today were cancelled because of rough seas. Our skies today, despite the swells, are blue. How did Shackleton manage to navigate a small wooden lifeboat in hurricane force winds? This trip is helping us relive the epic story of the human spirit. Shackleton was a consummate leader who ensured that not a single life was lost.

We haven't yet been to Elephant Island, but folks who have, kept saying, enjoy the green in South Georgia because you won't see it once you leave. All I see now is blue seas and white caps. South Georgia was discovered in the late 1600s and by the early 1900s had become the whaling capital of the world. It remained a whaling harbor until 1965. Once having a population of 15000 to 20000 in it's heyday. It was comprised of men and only 3 wives; our questions about needing women were artfully dodged by the crew. In 1982, the Falkland war came to the island with the Argentinean invasion and the British military garrison remained until 2001. It now has a permanent population of 12.

Our first day we had three landings, with fur seals, king penguins, and reindeer. Of course we overdressed. I expected it to be really cold, but the weather was in the high 40s. Our first stop was incredible as we walked among 250,000 king penguins of all sizes and shapes. No wide angle camera lens really captures how vast the rockery is. We found the big brown balls of fluff adorable. They followed their moms around pecking submissively underneath mom's bill for food. Sometimes mom would ignore them, sometimes put up with the pecking. What was interesting was they all seemed to feed at the same time, together. Then, there were the sad sacks. The teenagers. They were molting and rather odd looking. Some had lot all their fluff and were only left with a Mohawk hairdo; others a Beatle hairdo. Some were left with a pony fur look, or others a shawl. They were also the mischievous ones, the fellows who would pull at your coat or backpack or talk back to mom or walk all hunched over like all the weight of the world was on their shoulders. As their fluff dropped and they came into full adulthood, the yellow on their beaks, head and chest became a rich orange gold. They would strut through the crowd chest out, neck stretched high above the rest to show off. They slept three ways: lying down on their bellies, standing tall but balanced on their heels, or standing with their necks totally twisted and tucked backwards under their wings so they looked headless. In the water, they dove in and then popped up, floating, and looked, to our surprise, like ducks. Then there were the groups who would walk along hitting one another with their flippers.

Our next stop introduced us to the wild world of fur seals. Remember the whack a mole penguins? Well we had whack a mole seals. First, we had a welcoming committee of seals. They saw our zodiac and came en mass to say hello. These are not shy animals. They are curious about everything. Some have little ferret faces, some puppy faces, some kitty faces, some to rodent faces...some lemur faces..the little ones are dark brown or black. The adult ones are blonde, a mix or brown. The pups make lamb noises. The older ones bark. They love to run up to you and you clap and say no. They run back and try again. It's a game. They must be very bored. After a which, it gets old. You just say: "bad seal." They are very active- constantly playing. In the water, with one another. They are so much fun to watch. We climbed up this boardwalk on our second excursion and they would see us coming and hide in the grass and jump out at us, barking, we would clapbat them and the game would begin! And they were everywhere. The team had to shoo them off for us. At our last stop on the second day, they were very aggressive. It was a large field, and they would intermingle with the reindeer and the king penguins and put on quite a show. At one stop, however, on our second day, they were sweet and docile, and there was no wild charging. They had very different personalities.

As sweet as the fur seal is, the elephant seal is disgusting. Doug thinks they are rather nice and keeps showing me cute pictures of them. However, this is the man who also posts pictures of me that he thinks are good and I think are awful. The elephant seal is really a strange animal. To me, it looks like a giant slug. The 2-3 month old babies were only 2 tons and full grown elephant seals grow to 4 tons. While young, they have sweet cat like faces, which, unfortunately, as they mature, develop grotesque large noses. They slither along the ground like snails and we had roadblocks due to elephant seal crossing. They are nasty creatures, fast in land and in the sea, traveling many miles quickly. You can't clap you hands and say " no" to them. I don't know if anyone will post a picture but their very large nostrils always have white mucous coming out of them...another endearing feature. This is caused by a teeny spider that lives deep in the seals' respiratory system and causes it irritation. The seal sneezes, forcing the spider out. Since the seal is often in close contact with other seals, it is easily passed. Do I see a clinical opportunity here?

Back to people.... Some folks decided to take part of the Shackleton trek over the mountains, while others opted for a flatter walk. The Shackleton walk wasn't the full walk, but about a tenth of the actual walk...the last bit to the whaling station in Grytviken. Doug and i opted for the flat walk, Doug walking farther than I, and we still felt this later. The landscape was reminiscent of the west of the US with the addition of a glacier or two.

We had the opportunity for some retail therapy in the town of Grytviken. There is a post office, a gallery, an outdoor museum and an indoor museum. The outdoor museum housed Shackleton's cemetery plot (his wife said to keep his body in the place he loved the most instead of returning it to England. no one said whether she came to the funeral, but he did have a mistress and was a lousy husband who was never home, so I'm guessing she probably didn't want him back), a self guided tour of the whaling factory, the church; the indoor museums contained a mixture of artifacts from the whaling period as well as replicas of the lifeboats Shackleton traveled in. The museum had the usual stuff.

That night, we had a presentation from the Heritage trust in Dundee which is a Habitat restoration project which is a project to rid South Georgia of the Norwegian brown rat which arrived with sealers and whalers and has thrived and eats birds' eggs and baby birds. It focuses on birds on the ground and underground, primarily the pipit, but where eradicated, even albatross populations have improved. Pellets are used which the rats love, but sadly secondary mortality does occur. Phase one is complete but they still need to complete phase two which holds some urgency. They are trying to prevent the rats ( which to date do not appear to have DNA relationships) from crossing the glaciers. These glaciers are receding 1 meter per day and the rats could then either swim or find dry land. With success, there could be 10 million more birds in 5 years; in three years there should be breeding pipits.

Our final day included the lovely Gold Harbor and a wonderful zodiac ride in and out of coves where we had a different vantage point of South Georgia, the animals and the scenery. We saw a glacier carve twice and our first iceberg in a distance in South Georgia.

As we left South Georgia, we had traveled 740 nautical miles from Ushuaia and had 736 nautical miles to go to Elephant Island.