Day 14: St. Andrew’s Bay & Grytviken
January 10th, 2015
“If you were to take a giant carving-knife, slice along beneath one of the highest mountain
ridges of Switzerland, just where the huge glaciers tumble into the valley below,
and then drop your slice of mountain, dripping with sugar-icing, into the sea, I think you would
get a fair idea of the place. For it is long and narrow, and everywhere the snow-covered
mountains rise straight from the water, reaching, near the center of the island, to a height of
over 9,000 feet. Seen from afar on an early spring day, South Georgia is
a breath-taking sight and one not easily forgotten.”
– Niall Rankin, 1946
ridges of Switzerland, just where the huge glaciers tumble into the valley below,
and then drop your slice of mountain, dripping with sugar-icing, into the sea, I think you would
get a fair idea of the place. For it is long and narrow, and everywhere the snow-covered
mountains rise straight from the water, reaching, near the center of the island, to a height of
over 9,000 feet. Seen from afar on an early spring day, South Georgia is
a breath-taking sight and one not easily forgotten.”
– Niall Rankin, 1946
Today we visited two of the most well known sites in South Georgia. The first was Saint Andrew’s Bay, where there are more than 250,000 breeding pairs of king penguins. When you add in the sub-adults and the crèches of chicks, it’s a very impressive sight. We spent quite some time sitting up on a hill above the colony, sitting in awe at the massive accumulation of birds, the natural patterns in their positions, and just taking in the immense amount of stimulation from the sights and sounds of more than half a million king penguins. It was hard to imagine that many penguins wanting to live around each other, but then when we considered the adult penguins easy getaway to the other side of the water, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Or maybe we should not try to humanize king penguins… Either way, it was a crowded beach. In the afternoon, we headed to Grytviken, the location of an abandoned whaling station with a museum (and gift shop!), an old whaler’s church, and Ernest Shackleton’s gravesite. On January 5, 1922 Shackleton suffered a heart attack in the harbor at Grytviken and passed away, his body traveled all the way to Montevideo en route to England, before his wife gave instructions to have him buried in the south. We raised a glass of scotch at his grave (half for us, half for him) before having time to explore the whaling stations oil tanks and machinery. We wandered through the church, it’s library, the museum, and along the shoreline to look at the rusty ships before heading back to the ship for the night.
Days 15 & 16: At Sea – The Scotia Sea, and Approaching the Falkland Islands
January 11-12th, 2015
“… In the surge of the South Atlantic, some 250 miles east of the nearest point of Patagonia…
lie a group of islands…Storm-whipped, treeless and forbidding, they saw centuries go by,
waiting until some fine venture of spirit should bring them within human ken. Twice they were seen
as desolate coast looming out of the tempest, bringing dismay not comfort, to the storm-blinded seafarer;
seen and then lost. They were found again and named, and lost; refound and named – and that not
once or twice. Today the name of every bluff and reef and smallest channel of them –
though many names are changed or lost – writes out the island’s history.”
– Boyson (1924), The Falkland Islands
lie a group of islands…Storm-whipped, treeless and forbidding, they saw centuries go by,
waiting until some fine venture of spirit should bring them within human ken. Twice they were seen
as desolate coast looming out of the tempest, bringing dismay not comfort, to the storm-blinded seafarer;
seen and then lost. They were found again and named, and lost; refound and named – and that not
once or twice. Today the name of every bluff and reef and smallest channel of them –
though many names are changed or lost – writes out the island’s history.”
– Boyson (1924), The Falkland Islands
In an unexpected twist, we find ourselves headed toward the Falklands half a day sooner than anticipated… What this means for us? We’re not totally sure yet. So we’ll wait through the days at sea, anticipating our landing in Port Stanley!