40 Below: An Antarctic Birthday Quest #6 (South Georgia Island Day 3&4)

 Monday March 6, 2023

St. Andrew’s Bay and Grytviken

The day started with a somewhat disappointing failed kayaking attempt. We were in an unbelievably stunning place with the largest colony of King Penguins in the whole world, and it was a pristine blue sky day. You could see even the highest peaks of South Georgia Island, at nearly 10,000ft tall. It would have been our first time out as a group; unfortunately, the winds were just a bit too high. Also unfortunately, they calmed down to acceptable levels after we made the call about the kayaking being a no-go for the morning and after I struggled into my dry suit and fully geared up. But walking around the bay was still incredible. With massive elephant seals belching and yawning and playful fur seal pups causing trouble for the penguins, the area was teeming with life. The elephant seals all lay closely together to share warmth and viewing them looks like a patch of slightly differentiated brown and extraordinarily large, blubbery bumps that occasionally lift a flipper to scratch their side or their face. They are such strange creatures and they make even stranger noises.

Elephant Seals

But the real star of the show for me was the unbelievable scenery surrounding the bay. 

I spent almost 2 hours on shore and then an hour in a zodiac cruising around the bay area seeing more wildlife and giant kelp beds. Then it was back to the boat for a warm up drink, lunch, and a short cruise to Grytviken.

When we kayak we have to get ready and get off the boat first. Around 2pm we geared up and then headed over to Grytviken to Shackleton’s gravesite, and we toasted “The Boss” with Shackleton brand whiskey (made in the Falkland Islands). It tasted pretty good! So then I explored the old whaler’s church, a Norwegian Lutheran church (similar to that featured in Babette’s Feast) built in the early 1900s. There is a fantastic museum there about what a sealer or a whaler’s life would have been like, the history and biology of the island, specimens of some of the strange cold-water invertebrates that inhabit these waters, and a penguin and a fur seal pelt (both responsibly and humanely sourced). These pelts were particularly helpful because it saves me breaking about 30 different kinds of laws by reaching out and touching one of these creatures, which 1) I really want to do and 2) is quite possible given their proximity to us most days. The penguin’s feathers are smooth and silky to the touch but hearty and thick. Their backs have a subtle speckled pattern which you would never notice unless you were right up close.

Toasting Shackleton

I joined my kayaking group down by the shore and we hopped in our boats and got going. We paddled around the bay and then out around the headlands into another neighboring bay where we found an old shipwreck and better views of the surrounding glaciers. It wasn’t so much the different views or the things we saw but the quiet and the rhythm of the paddles and being away from the big group and the swarms of loud boisterous animals. I really enjoyed the quiet and the relative solitude of the paddle. Being the only single one in the group, I was in a kayak with one of the guides, Poblano Pepper, and thus had to do VERY little work at all. One of his efficient and strong oar strokes equaled about 5 of mine. I also found out that he has been a kayak guide in Alaska for the last 4 years, and is from Argentina originally. He told me he is the crazy one in his family and his brothers and sisters are lawyers and doctors.

Grytviken kayaking ended in me not being able to feel any of my toes and a long, cold zodiac ride back to the boat. Our amazing guides wanted to keep us out on the water as long as possible and take us as far as we could go, and so we ended up being 30 minutes late for dinner. I’m pretty sure they both got into some trouble because two other zodiacs came looking for us while we were coming in and it was basically dark by the time we got back to the boat. The South Georgian barbeque had begun in full force and we were already late. The hilarious situational irony was that the ONLY night of this absurdly long cruise that I would have yearned to be in the sweltering hot dining room we eat every other meal in, we were outside on the top deck and it had started snowing.

I ate with boat besties Celery and Cucumber and a researcher on South Georgia Island named Kelvin from New Zealand who helps eradicate invasive species on an annual basis on different remote islands the world over. Who even knew that was a job you could have? Kelvin started in the forest service in NZ and then worked his way to more and more remote places and has clearly been very successful at achieving his goals. He and his colleagues from the research station all came and partied on the boat with us, and got free booze, and fresh food which are all in short supply on Grytviken. They had a wonderful time in the lounge after the BBQ singing karaoke and I stayed up later than I had the entire cruise because everything was just so interesting. The expedition leader put on a knitted cap in the shape of a puffin and led a conga line of at least 20 people on the deck in the snow at one point. It was definitely a night to remember.

Tuesday March 7, 2023

Gold Harbor and Cooper Island

This morning started with a 5:30am wake up call, second in a row, a groggy breakfast, and then another shore landing in Gold Harbor. It is surrounded by glaciers and is supposed to be very beautiful in the morning light but unfortunately, the morning was overcast and gray. We ate our breakfast and loaded onto the boats to get over to the penguins and even though I have seen literally a million penguins over the last 4 days, I can say this landing was still different. It was a smaller colony but it was alright on the beach and we were walking in the midst of the colony itself, whereas before we were either above it on a hill or to the side of it across a beach or a spit of land. This time, we were right in the thick of it and we could see all the baby penguin chicks nestled amongst their elders and feeding from their parents. Before, we could only hear their high pitched chirps and could only pick them out with binoculars. This time we were close enough that the chicks were right there. Blueberry climbed up to the top of a steep hill overlooking the colony with Yucca, Naranja, and myself. Poor Blueberry stood there looking up at the lovely ridgeline just above us, easily accessible, pining to wander further afield. I felt the same as he did.

There is a fine line to walk in a group like this with a vast breadth of experience and levels of ability. It must be very hard to design an itinerary that is exciting, accessible, and creates an equitable experience for each passenger. There is a palpable sense of competition amongst the passengers - to have the best weather, see the most things, see them the closest and the most times, get the best pictures, get to the most remote and unique places, etc. Even within one landing you can have competition where you jostle for position if elephant seals are fighting and you want the best line of vision, or if you’re on the side of the zodiac facing aware from the shoreline and something cool happens, people feel gypped and sometimes will complain about it. Admittedly, this is a high stakes destination: it’s expensive, takes a long time, and it has many variables that can make or break it for people. This company tends to embrace that nature is unpredictable in their marketing and on-board messaging to better prepare passengers for the disappointment they will certainly feel at some point. But it is impossible to please everyone.

And then with the wide range of abilities the activities we do are way too easy for some, and stretching the edge of ability for others. There are hardcore hikers aboard who could easily have attained the ridge atop the penguin colony and walked around up there, but then the boat would have had to staff the ridgeline and make sure that anyone who wanted to get up there had help getting up there. We have several single female passengers well into their 80s with mobility issues who are doing admirably well but if we were allowed to range far and wide, well beyond the scope of what some passengers could do, it may make some people feel they were missing out on something. So the measures they take to create a unified atmosphere are well-thought out, but also leave some of us chomping at the bit for more.

Still, even within the bounds of a unified experience, we saw a Giant Petrel come and rob a penguin of its egg and steal it away as food. Later in the afternoon on a zodiac ride I saw a leopard seal grab a macaroni penguin and play with it to disable it and then eat it. It is a humbling thing to witness so much life happening all around and it would be hard to feel like I was missing out on anything, seeing so much.

Leopard seal

We spent the afternoon at a place called Cooper Island mainly to find some Macaroni penguins.These are the most populous species of penguin on South Georgia Island, but they tend to live in the hardest to reach rocky, steep places, inaccessible to boats and people, making them harder to find. I was exhausted from the day before so I opted for the shorter zodiac ride, 90 minutes as opposed to 2-2.5 hours. Fortunately, I got Lingonberry as the Zodiac driver and he again entertained us all with his excellent knowledge of the environment and a story about how one time, when he was driving a zodiac in Svalbard, his boat got attacked by a walrus which lodged its tusks in the side of the boat and Lingonberry eventually had to grab the tusks and use his knee as a lever to free the walrus from the boat and get away from it. I was crying laughing by the end. Best zodiac ride yet.

After it was over, it was back on board for a warming happy hour with two of my favorite British couples. Their husbands talked about how they like to rebuild and restore old cars, and the wives talked about how it always becomes their problem to rescue them from the inevitable scrapes they get into. Dinner was again lovely and then an early bedtime was necessary. Two days at sea on the way to Antarctica to follow.

Macaroni penguins