South Georgia!
Remote, rugged, and teeming with wildlife, South Georgia is known as the ‘Serengeti of the Southern Ocean’. We picked our cruise package specifically because S. Georgia was on the route. We’ll be working our way along the east side of the island group for the next four days. High expectations!
Original plans were for a wet landing at Elsehul Bay, a fantastic wildlife spotting location. Zodiacs don’t go out if winds are over 30 knots and we’re above that so it’s on to the more protected Right Whale Bay. The bay is named after ‘Right’ Whales which historically frequented the area and were the ‘right’ target for whalers. The bay is now home to King Penguins, Antarctic Fur seals, and light-mantled albatross. Lots of them.
The Seaventure docked in the bay quite a distance offshore. We could hear the penguin chatter from the shore. We could smell them too! A diet of fish does interesting (and unpleasant) things to penguin poo. Cattle country has nothing on these guys.
After breakfast we are able to do a wet landing. King Penguins everywhere!
A panoramic view of the King rookery.
The video quality is terrible as we had to compress to load.
The rookery is estimated at 30,000 breeding pairs. Counting singles & immatures that’s close to 75,000. Mixed amongst the Kings are a small number of Gentoo Penguins.
We’re supposed to stay 5 meters from the any wildlife. Great idea, but somewhat flawed as they are so curious. They walk right up to you and will follow as you move around. Hilarious.
Mary had a curious friend.
Loved his buddy’s photobomb at the end!
There are still a number of immatures in the colony. They are hard to spot as they tend to be in the middle of the group for protection. The first pic below is a close shot of part of the colony. For the second pic we zoomed in and were able to spot the chicks. The chicks are the brown guys
There is also a large colony of Fur Seals, female Elephant Seals and their pups. The pups here are very curious and quite aggressive. The approved procedure for discouraging the seals from nipping legs is to brush their whiskers with your walking stick. Works sometimes. We also had a low flyover from a Wandering Albatross while on shore and saw some Northern Giant Petrels.
We followed up the beach landing at Right Whale with a zodiac cruise along the coast which gave a good perspective on the size of the colony. Amazing.
This must be ‘Plan B’ day. Original plans for the afternoon were to land on the Salisbury Plain on the Bay of Isles to see the massive King colony there. Drat – cancelled due to swell. Instead, we moved to a more sheltered location for a zodiac cruise of Sunset Harbor. Glaciers, seals, & some interesting geology.
We crashed a fur seal ‘pool party’ where the pups splash around in kelps beds playing with each other. The guides were geeked!
Not a bad first day on South Georgia!
Penguin count: 75,000 (Kings), 2,000 (Gentoo)
Total trip penguin count: 84,500