October 30th: A less than totally auspicious start to our first day in the vicinity of South Georgia.
The Nat Geo Explorer has an open bridge policy. Here is the captain looking ahead with binoculars.
Fog, whitecaps and icebergs. Yeah, that's what we love. NOT!
This is a map of South Georgia, supplied by Linblad/Nat Geo, of the places that we would ultimately go, or TRY to go. Essentially, we went counter-clockwise around the Island.
This was a pretty typical sequence of events for determining what we might be able to do. The crew pulled a zodiac off the stack that is in the rear of the top deck.
Russ, our expedition leader, is already on board.
He is headed for something.
And off he goes.
He typically went by himself. Here he is trying to determine if we can land anywhere near where Shackleton first made landfall on South Georgia.
Meantime, always a good opportunity, if the ship is steady, to do a panorama of the entrance to King Haakon Bay.
Some Cape Petrels floating on a temporarily calm sea.
Russ is back, with a plan, I am sure.
The plan ends up being able to do some zodiac cruises around key spots near the mouth of King Haakon Bay. Here the fleet of several zodiacs are both ferrying people close to shore and waiting their turn to pick up clients.
Depending on how rough the seas are, getting into a zodiac can be like stepping off a moving elevator. You only have one chance to get it right. Two crew members hold the zodiac in some sort of position and two people help each person on board.
Circling around some specific point of land.
Into Cave Cove, the tiny spot where Shackleton's six man team first made landfall. I doubt if the red plastic trash was there 100 years ago.
This small indention was where six men huddled for several days waiting out the storm.
Some humans in the foreground provide a bit of perspective. Santiago, the resident bird naturalist, is the one standing.
Out into the open bay., and eventually, back to the ship.
As we were leaving Cave Cove, I think this female elephant seal was expressing her appreciation that we were leaving.
Later that day, the ship moved to the head of King Haakon Bay, and we landed in zodiacs near where Shackleton landed
Always a seal to great us. If you look closely, you can see members of our ship climbing quite high, probably on the route that Shackleton used to cross South Georgia.
