South Georgia (1)

After the ups and downs (and side to sides) of recent times, we awoke to calmer waters.  We have reached South Georgia and are moored in the safety of Fortuna Bay on Sunday 23^rd December.  Despite the vagaries of the Fram’s Wi-Fi I was able to ascertain that NUFC had a magnificent 1-0 win over ‘Arry’s QPR – howay the lads (though I note that the Mackems had an away win – but only over Southampton….).

We are now within the cold waters of the Antarctic Convergence and our first icebergs have been sighted. Not of titanic proportions but impressive all the same. 

Our landing was on to a beach covered in Fur Seals and they have to be given a reasonably wide berth because they can be aggressive (well, more defensive I suppose) as they all have young.  And baby seals are real cute…

So we picked our way carefully through the seals and made our way to a colony of King Penguins – they look like the Emperor (you know the ones  - ‘March of the Penguins’) but are not so large.  They too have chicks, all of different ages.  The mature chicks are actually larger than their parents because of the layers of fat they have to put on.  They are covered in brown fuzz (feathers really) and are comical to look at.  Some are in the late stages of moulting so just have odd bits of the brown feathers clinging to them – and even funnier sight.

We spotted one Gentoo Penguin as well.  Reindeer were also in evidence.  These are an introduced species (by the Norwegian whalers many years ago) and have now become so successful that they are going to have to be culled because they are eating all the grass needed by the various native species.

All through this landing it was snowing quite heavily.  These conditions meant that the proposed hike ‘in the footsteps of Shackleton’ had to be cancelled.

The Fram moved us on to Stromness Bay for an afternoon landing. The snow stopped and the sun is glinting through.  The landings happen in groups.  We are in Group 3.  It is taken in turns which group goes first and it has come around to us being last so went ashore at about 6.00.  Of course, the light is still very good – well it would be if there was less cloud cover. But we are not complaining – temperatures would not be out of place in Northumberland.

Stromness was where Shackleton made contact with whalers after his epic voyage from Elephant Island and trek across the central mountains of South Georgia.  Although we could not walk in his footsteps we could see the way which he would have come down to the point where we landed.  There are still derelict buildings here from the whaling and sealing past.

Once again we landed among grumpy Fur Seals and then made our way to a Gentoo Penguin colony.  We spent a long time here listening to and watching the birds as youngsters begged for food, adults built nests and saw off marauding Brown Skuas.

There were also nesting Antarctic Terns – acting in much the same way as their cousins do on the Farne Islands.

Just as were about to board the Cirkel to return to the Fram for dinner a lone Chinstrap Penguin was spotted.  We hope to see more later in the expedition.  Julia is even more in love with penguins – but has an aversion to snarling seals with big teeth. 

It was very difficult to choose photos for today.  I would gladly load hundreds but the WiFi won’t allow.  Tomorrow sees another landing on South Georgia – at Grytviken where Shackleton is buried.