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 greet 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.
Susie elected to do a longer hike and she is likely in the group pictured.
Roger is probably in the group just having landed.
One of our favorite landscapes of the trip. Looking to the south-southeast across the head of the Bay.
A small group of penguins and a group from our ship in the distance.
Female Elephant Seals singing? Probably just expressing displeasure that we are there.
Baby elephant seal nursing.
Is this Jabba the Hut or a bull elephant seal washing up on the beach?
Elephant seal yoga.
Looking toward the head of the bay. You tend to forget there is gorgeous scenery all around in addition to all the wildlife.
But it is hard to avoid seeing animals as these seals just litter the beach.
Showing his teeth and his battle wounds.
It almost seemed like these guys were staying low in the grasses to avoid being run over by seals.
Looking along the north side of the bay.
Hikers returning to the landing zone to be "zodiaced" to the mothership.
Pulling out of King Haakon Bay, it looks like the weather might be lifting a bit.
October 31st: The next morning, we are in Godthul Bay. Looks like the weather did not lift.
We ended up cruising around the area in Zodiacs. Roger is in the green hat to the right of center.
The zodiacs cruised around looking at icebergs and bird life.
Some clients elected to go for a short hike, but we stayed on the zodiac.
Not a very auspicious morning, which is one reason why we opted out of the hike.
Sometimes you get lucky. The ship's hotel chief (wearing the "viking" hat) came out in a zodiac, and because it was so cold and wet, offered passengers hot tea or cocoa, and it could be laced with any sort of adult beverage you chose. Life was good.
A closer view of the waterfall in the distance.
The weather seemed to improve a bit and it was time to pick up the hikers, and sail to Grytviken
I liked this photo of Eduardo, one of the naturalists, driving the zodiac.
By the time we got to the vicinity of Grytviken that afternoon, the weather was definitely looking better.
The research station at Grytviken.
The person in the bright yellow-green jacket is an official of the British Government, who will be inspecting the boots and clothing of every person that goes ashore, to make sure their velcro, boots, etc do not contain any non-native seeds, etc. Thus, the dis-embarcations took a long time.
What remains of the Whaling Village at Grytviken.
The small cemetary on shore where Shackleton is buried. The king penguins appear to be molting and as such, tend to not move around much unless they are forced to.
A closeup of Shackleton's grave site. He was a fairly young man by today's standards when he died.
Most groups that come ashore have a toast to "The Boss," as Shackleton was called, with some of the whiskey he so liked. It has gotten so warm in the sun that Roger has taken off his jacket.
The old and the new. In many of these bays, there are ship wrecks, or just ships that were abandoned.
Some of the remnants of an active whale processing plant.
While it looked like this penguin was being chased, in fact, the group had stopped and it was coming in my direction.
Another disceased ship.
Some of the old mechanical devices were sort of interesting.
Golly, we can see the top of a peak nearby.
The whaler's church was built in 1913, but had to be restored in the 1990's, one reason why it looks so new.
