South Georgia - Wildlife Paradise

Shag Rocks, probably not an official name, but the Shags like them. You can't quite see them flying but they are everywhere

Day 5, March 3 2020

At sea to South Georgia

Giant Petrel

It would take two days to sail to South Georgia, so breakfasts were at 8am, lunch at 12:30 and dinners at 7pm. I made a conscious effort to sit with different people at eat meal time. It is amazing how many people are just travelling around the world. The expedition team came and sit with us so I had opportunities to speak to a number of them, they come from all over the world and many different fields. There are four Australians in the Expedition team and I think at least a quarter of the guests are Australian, with many from Melbourne!

Southern Royal Albatross

There was an iceberg spotting competition. While we didn’t actually have to see it, we had to guess at what time and what date the first iceberg that was bigger than the size of a bus would be spotted, as it turned out by the captain. I had no idea but decided it would be at least until after South Georgia, so picked the 10th March at 4am. It was sighted at 3:30am! I was close, but not close enough, a Singaporean woman was closer at 3:15am.

Southern Royal Albatross

Annie gave us a talk about the fur seals and elephant seals that we would be seeing in South Georgia. They will be in the molting stage when we see the elephant seals, where they shed not only their fur but their skin also. The seals are impregnated just after they give birth but it is held over until they have weaned their young, isn't nature amazing. It is the only time the males can pair up with them, so the timing is important.

We had a mandatory South Georgia briefing and if we didn’t attend we wouldn’t be allowed off the ship.

Adrian, our ornithologist who gave us a presentation of seabird threats. We then went out to the back deck to photograph some giant petrels and albatross.

Ed who is a mountain climber gave us a presentation on the History of South Georgia and the explorers who had travelled there – namely Shackleton. Shackleton is the reason he had joined the expedition team as he has climbed Mt Everest a few times.

We had to put our watches forward an hour before we went to bed but I had a Fitbit which needs to be connected to the internet to change the time which of course I couldn't do. Tip: always take a normal watch on holidays with you! We did have access to their intranet which allowed us to access our daily schedule and biographies of the expedition team.

The most interesting after dinner talk was about the Iceland volcano eruption in 2010 at Eyjafjallajokull glacier. Henry was with a 21 year old police officer going to investigate the eruption. When faced with a black cloud, Henry asked the police officer if he was going to drive into it and he said “yes”. I would have been saying “oh noooo you’re not!” Once engulfed in the cloud they couldn’t see anything in front of them and were forced to stop. He put the windscreen wipers on which made the ash melt into the glass. One of them opened the windows for a nanosecond and they breathed in more poisonous gases than if they had smoked all their life. It took them forever to reverse backwards as they had no idea where they were going but could just see the grass next to the side of the road and used that as a guide. Needless to say the police car was a write off! Talk about scary.

Day 6, March 4 2020

At sea to South Georgia

Another day at sea started off with a presentation from our geologist Norm on the Glaciers and Glacier processes. I really like Norm as a presenter and it didn’t come as a surprise that he was a university lecturer in his previous life. He should be retired but obviously loves this subject with a passion and he makes it really easy to understand by using examples that we could all relate to. He also has a dry sense of humour and got annoyed when we forgot the answers to his questions, telling us we were all hopeless or asleep.

You can feel the weather getting colder as we pass over the Atlantic convergence and I have to start wearing my thermals on board. The auditorium was nearly always cold.

We had to get everything checked that we would be taking on shore down to the mud room and sign off that we had complied or we wouldn’t be allowed on shore. We had our own cubicle in the mud room where we could keep our boots, life jacket and parka. The Bio security check meant we had to make sure there weren’t any hitch-hikers on our Velcro, sand in the crevices of boots – just about anything that could affect the bio diversity of this island.

I skipped the “getting out of Auto” photography presentation from Keith for obvious reasons.

Annie gave us a talk on the Cetaceans of the Southern Ocean. Which was all about whales, dolphins and porpoises and the differences between them all.

We did see some whales but the pictures are too small or they are submerged and you only see their back

Most of the birds, whales and seals eat krill. Krill eats phytoplankton. Phytoplankton grows on the underside of ice sheets in very cold waters. With global warming the the ice sheets will melt, therefore no phytoplankton. You can guess the rest. I think only one penguin has adapted its diet to something else, let's hope the others follow suit.

Day 7 – March 5, 2020

St Andrews Bay, South Georgia

King Penguins

The King Penguin Colony at St Andrews Bay

There was a 50% chance that we would be able to disembark from our ship today. To make the odds more in our favour, it was decided that we would start leaving before breakfast at 6pm. Annie said it was the best light she had seen in the 19 years she had been coming here. It was snowing!

Our group went on shore first came back for breakfast and then went out on the zodiacs

We were supposed to go to Golden Bay at 3:30pm but there were three metre swells around one of the take off points from the ship although it was better on the other side. They did a recognisance drive to the beach but the waves were crashing over the back of the zodiacs when they tried to land making them into baths, so the afternoon was cancelled.

A king penguin chick - he's needs a good coat to keep warm

In its place Pat gave us a talk of the eradication of long tails (rodents) on the island of South Georgia, which took 10 years and $10 million pounds. It would have cost more if the Government had done it but a charity had so they were more stringent on costs. The Government had already eradicated the reindeer that the sealers had brought over in the 1800’s for game shooting and food. I was so tired from our early outing this morning that I’m sure I nodded off a few times. This is the reason for the very strict bio security measures, it doesn't take much for a seed to transfer on your boots or socks.