The day starts at St. Andrews Bay, ab0ut 30 km south of Grytviken. The bay’s setting is gorgeous, stretching nearly 3 km with a dark sand beach, surrounded by glaciers, massive peaks and a tussock plain.
The bay hosts the largest King penguin colony in existence with over 150,000 breeding pairs plus their chicks, adding up to almost 450,000 penguins. It’s an amazing scene to zodiac into – critters all over the place!
After landing, it’s a nice hike to cross a small river get to the main part of the rookery. The expedition crew helps with crossings. The river is fed by glacier melt and we’re told gets pretty lively as the day goes on with ice melt. The hike ends on top of a moraine looking down on the valley where the King colony gathers.
When you get to the top, the sound of the penguins and the sheer size of the colony are overwhelming. Just incredible.
There are really no words to describe this scene.
A zodiac cruise around the bay after the shore landing exposes the size of the rookery. Amazing!
There is more than just penguins. The elephant seals are huge and it’s clear that more than the 15 ft. clearance is advisable. The beach is an important elephant seal breeding ground. There are elephant pups and fur seals all over the beach making for a very busy scene. Brown Skuas and Northern Giant Petrels are also present.
We caught a fun exchange between fur seals and a pair of penguins.
Don’t mess with a penguin.
After lunch we are on to Grytviken, host to one of the many now abandoned whaling stations that populated South Georgia 100 years ago. Because the area there is considered environmentally sensitive, we are required to go through a very strict bio-Inspection with government inspectors who board the ship before we disembark. Serious stuff. Dick is randomly selected to go through the inspection, very similar but more extensive than what we did several days ago. The boss (Hannah L) was happy, we had a 100 percent pass rate.
Grytviken sits at the end of South Georgia’s King Edward cove, considered to be the best harbor on the island. At one time it was a major whaling station. It’s name, ‘Grytviken’, is Swedish for ‘pot bay’ given by members of a Swedish Antarctic expedition who found pots used for rendering seal fat on the site.
Shackleton passed away in the harbor here on his final expedition to Antarctica and is buried in the local cemetery. Others are buried here as well, including Shackleton’s right-hand man – Frank Wild. Hannah J, our ship historian, spent 6 months on the island on an earlier gig and part of her duties were to tend to the cemetery where Shackleton is buried. A toast to Sir Ernest is traditionally held at the cemetery where he is buried. Hannah led the memorial toast to Shackleton with a fine dram of Shackleton Scotch provided by the staff. Both Mary and I are keen to observe tradition. Very moving.
The Grytviken station is the only one authorized to have visitors enter some of the buildings. There are runs of the processing facilities and a few abandoned boats. The settlement has no permanent residents but often hosts researchers, military personnel, and seasonal staff. On site is a very popular post office, a ‘Whalers Church’ built by kit shipped in pieces from Norway (no trees on the islands) and a maritime museum with special exhibits on Shackleton.
One of the kayak groups goes out for a cruise of the bay, but it’s not Dick’s group. Oh well. His team is up next to bat!
It’s good fun later at dinner as the ship featured a special event – BBQ on the rarely open Deck 7. We begin with mulled wine, then ribs, chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, etc. It starts to snow, what fun. The heaters make things pleasant. A congo line begins, the staff get lively (it’s the final cruise of the season so they’re ready to go), and it’s party time! Our expedition leader, Hannah L, sports a cool penguin hat! Sadly, no picture.
Penguin count: 450,000 (Kings)
Total trip penguin count: 534,500