Right Whale Bay and Rosita Harbour

Our first iceberg.

South Georgia Island

King penguins

A Weddell seal

King penguins and elephant seals

A creche of year old King penguin chicks.

A young female fur seal.

Love elephant seal style.

Surveying the water for leopard seals.

There was one swimming around our Zodiacs, checking us out.

A leopard seal with penguin it killed (from a video I took).

Thrashing it around to remove the head.

 A sealion bull waiting for his dates at Rosita Harbour.

One of our kayaks. Some people paid extra to do this activity.

Thursday, October 31^st.

Overnight the crew spent some time decorating the ship for Hallowe’en.

We have arrived at the island of South Georgia. We could see it outside our portal. The three of us went up on deck to watch as we approached Right Whale Bay. We saw our first iceberg! Again, the conditions are apparently unbelievable, calm with little wind and some sun. The temperature was about 2 or 3. Using the lens I could see penguins and elephant seals on shore from the ship.

John and I and the rest of the Rockhoppers were the second group out today and were shuttled to the beach. There we were given a short briefing about where to go and what to watch out for: male elephant seals and male fur seals, which are aggressive as it is breeding season. I stood for a while taking photos along the beach before hiking up the beach and following the markers to a viewpoint up on a small tussock covered hill. From there you could get an overview of the whole area and the colonies along the whole beach. What an incredible place! It is full of life!

Then I went back to the beach to watch the King penguins and elephant seals up close. The noise of the elephants from their vocalizations and passing wind were well evident. Jonathan asked if any of us wanted to go out for a little tour on a Zodiac. John and I went and boy am I glad we did! Our driver Bismarck promised us a leopard seal and we saw two! John (the guide) who was in another Zodiac, showed us where one was and we sat and watched. It came up and looked at both Zodiacs and swam under them and kept peaking up at us to see what we were. Very curious. John told us there was another killing a penguin nearby, so Bismarck took us there. As we pulled up we could see the seal ‘playing’ with the penguin for a while before it was sure it was dead and then thrashing it about on the surface to rip its head off. Brutal to see but also amazing. We watched for a bit longer as the seal dismembered the penguin to remove its spine to make it easier to eat. There were a number of birds around trying to get pieces. Then we headed back to the ship, where we washed our boots thoroughly before heading to the room to download photos and have a pee! We cannot urinate on shore, so we either have to dehydrate ourselves a bit or return to the ship.

Another excellent lunch of fish, chicken schnitzel and Moroccan tagine. While we were eating the captain relocated our boat to Rosito Harbour.

The Rockhopper group were first to disembark and John and I were in the first Zodiac. We were met by John who gave us a brief update. There is little wild life here at the moment, a few elephant seals, several bull fur seals, birds and two King penguins. So, we went for a short walk along the beach in the fine mist. However, about an hour later it began to rain and we decided to go back. There were four of us in the Zodiac and the leader took us on a short exploration, but unlike this morning there was little to see other than a few shags (cormorants) and lots of kelp. So, we went back to the ship. What a difference from this morning, and honestly by comparison it was disappointing, but hey… it would be hard to top this morning!

While we were waiting for the Zodiac, John regaled us with some horror stories of things gone wrong on previous journeys over the last twenty years. Stories of people being attacked by fur seal bulls, or an elephant seal bull that grabbed a guy and shook him around violently ripping off part of his hamstring. He had to be airlifted by the Chilean air force at his own expense as apparently insurance wouldn’t cover it. Taking a voyage to these remote locations is inherently dangerous and if something goes really wrong and someone gets severely injured it possible that the ship would have to turn around and abandon the trip. We are expected to make eight landings on South Georgia over four days, but John told us that one time they were only able to make one landing! And that was in rough conditions. So, we are indeed lucky!

Dinner was a barbeque, which they had hoped to have on deck, but because of the rain, we ate in the Dining Room. Lots of variety of meat and fixings.

John, Bruce and I had a quiet evening in our room where I shared my collection of funny t-shirts and Wicked Vans sayings.