What another fantastic day. I had a perfect night sleep, as I have most nights, although last night we didn’t sail anywhere and were anchored in a sheltered bay. The ship pulled anchor and moved around to Hercules Bay first thing. Breakfast was at 0700 and boarding zodiacs at 0800. The scenery was spectacular. Steep sided cliffs with lots of folding with Macaroni Penguins, Fur Seals and Elephant Seals spread out around the cliffs and on the small pebbly beach. There was a lovely waterfall that was quite a long drop and the top of it was lost in cloud most of the morning. The plan was to send out 3 zodiacs to one landing, 3 to another and the remaining 6 out cruising.
I went out on one of the first zodiacs and went to landing site near Hercules Point. It was only a small area but wow, so much to look at. It was great that there were also only 24 people there. I watched the elephant Seals for a bit before heading to the Macaroni Penguin highway. They are such funny animals, only walking in groups walking down the hill from their nesting site, dodging their way past Fur Seals who chase them and then into the crashing waves. Some chicken out when they get to the water and turn around and head back up the hill. Many of the young Fur Seals were playing in the water. There were two baby blonde Fur Seals. They are really sweet except they never sit still long enough to take a decent photo of them.
After an hour there I jumped in a zodiac and went cruising with Tom as our driver. We went out and around Hercules Point to some rock caves. These were filled with loafing Elephant Seals and I got a great photo of a swimming Elephant Seals face with a reflection of our zodiac in its eye. We saw one Chinstrap Penguin and some Sheathbills and a lot more Macaroni Penguins. We then went out to the opposite headland point and saw an adult female blonde Fur Seal lazing on the rocks. Then we went into the Bay proper and sat and watched the Macaroni’s going in and out of the water off the rock cliffs before going to the landing site next to the waterfall. We all bailed out and then walked the steep hill to see Macaroni’s nesting. I can’t believe how high up some of these animals walk just to nest but have to return to the water to feed. It would be quite an effort. I saw some fuzzy babies. Mandeep and I walked back down the hill together and it was a challenging walk. We slipped and slid down the hill getting barked at and chased by Fur Seals all the way to the bottom. It was then time to return to the ship so it could pull anchor and start heading to Grytviken.
After lunch we had a talk by one of the managers of South Georgia on the ship whilst customs did an inspection of the ship. The talk was really interesting. She talked about the rat project currently taking place. They have started doing massive baiting with the hope of eradicating rats from the island. At the moment they are using the physical boundaries of the glaciers as baiting boundaries, but because it is a known fact that the ice is retreating, they need to get the program completed within the next four years otherwise the rats will be able to pass past the ice as it retreats. Once they get rid of the rats, they will start removing the reindeer with the hope that the island returns to a more natural state of long grass and bird colonies will return in good numbers. Two of the current scientific researches at the research station based at Grytviken also chatted to us about their projects – one on Fur Seals, the other on fish sampling and inspecting commercial fishing boats.
Once we had cleared customs we were ferried across to the mainland with our first stop being the cemetery where Shackleton is buried and as of a month ago, Wiles, Shackleton’s right hand man who now lies alongside him. The staff handed out shots of Captain Morgan Rum for everyone and Dag did a toast to Shackleton. From there we had free time to explore the area. Again there were Fur Seals and Elephant Seals everywhere. The whaling station was interesting. The church has been restored and there is a post office which everyone crammed into. It was just like having to queue in the post office at home at lunch time. I visited the two museums, both really interesting and had great displays before heading into the shop. Who ever designed all the stuff they sell in there really knows what people will want to buy? Its one of the best gift shops I have ever been too and oddly enough, also one of the cheapest. I bought a couple of small lino cut prints.
The area where Grytviken is quite spectacular. They put the whaling station there because of the size of the bay to process the whales. Now everything is falling down and rusting and all the Fur and Elephant Seals call it home. There are three ships decaying in the port and all the processing equipment is still there lying around. Again I caught one of the last zodiacs back to the ship. At 2000 we had a BBQ on the deck. It was freezing cold and sleeting. Some of the research station staff and Museum staff joined us for dinner. I was very proud of myself for staying outside as long as I did. I have so many layers on trying to stay warm but things because difficult when I tried to eat my corn cob with gloves on. When the snow started I decided to venture back inside and joined a few people at the bar.
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