Fortuna Bay sits at the end of a 6 km fjord on the South Georgia’s northeast coast. The bay is named after the first ship to enter the area and was popular with sealers seeking elephant seal oil. This area is historically notable as the final leg of Ernest Shackleton’s incredible, 17-month story of survival as part of the Endurance expedition. A hike from Fortuna to Stromness (recreating a portion of Shackleton’s journey) with some challenging sections is possible under good conditions and was scheduled for later in the day.
We are able to do a wet zodiac landing on the bay’s Worsley Beach. The beach is named after Frank Worsley, one of Shackleton’s companions.
The bay is home to around 7,000 breeding pairs of King Penguins which adds up to some 20,000 birds after including the immatures. There are also a few Gentoo Penguins here as well.
A creative way to get up the hill!
Penguins are just plain fun to watch. They are really clumsy on land, often falling over doing pretty straightforward things like walking! The two featuring prominently in the video below are an obvious couple – grooming and travelling together. In the background is a young seal getting a little too close to one of the Kings.
They seem like a nice couple
Many of the young Kings have entered what is referred to as a ‘catastrophic molting period’. During this time, they will completely replace their old feathers for new ones. For Gentoo and King penguins this can take up to 3 weeks. During molt, they cannot go into the water to feed and lose a substantial amount of body weight. They try to conserve as much energy as possible and therefore just stand around looking mostly miserable. We are asked to give them more space so to not stress them more. We saw one parent with an egg. It is late in the season for an egg. We are told that successful parents will sometimes have a second egg later in the season, but it has a low probability of survival.
There are quite a few fur seals on the beach and in the tussock grass. It’s interesting how different their behavior is from the ones we saw yesterday at Right Whale Bay. These pups are curious but far more cautious than the others and much less aggressive.
South Georgia is the main breeding ground for Antarctic Fur Seals and this bay in particular is a favorite.
Lots of activity on the beach.
The Shackleton hike was to leave from the beach area and cross over the mountains to Stromness. Alas, the weather turned foul with hail and snow. Conditions make it too dangerous, and the hike cancelled.
The Seaventure moved down coast to the calmer Stromness Bay. The abandoned whaling station there was the end point of Shackleton’s rescue journey. At the end of it’s life, the station was converted to a ship repair facility. We did a zodiac beach landing and viewed what’s left of the whaling station, now inhabited by Gentoo.
Later, Dick took part in an extended hike to Shackleton’s waterfall where his group had to rappel down the iced-over fall to reach the whaling station where they were able to get help to rescue his other men some 17 months after being stranded. Read the book on his Endurance expedition. It’s quite a tribute to Shackleton’s leadership.
Penguin count: 20,000 (Kings), 500 (Gentoo)
Total trip penguin count: 105,000