South Georgia (four) Gold Harbour & Cooper Bay

I am soooo far behind. We are in the Antarctic now but no landings yet.  So, back to S. Georgia. 

Date: who the hell knows.  I think it might have been a Sunday

In the briefing the night before, Jonathon showed us the weather forecast as he always does.  Red and Purple are high winds, green and blue are landing weather. We were coming to the South West? tip of the island.  At the tip is Cape Disappointment because that is where Captain Cook realized he was circling an island and not the theoretical white continent.  But we were not disappointed!.  The weather map showed a solid block of purple except for one tiny blob of green right at the place we were headed.  

We arrived at Cooper Bay to the most glorious sunshine.  Again, it is getting cliche at this point, Jonathon as in raptures about the weather.  Our zodiac guy said he had never seen the top of the glacier we were heading to, it was always shrouded in fog in his previous trips.  We had no fog, no clouds, just blue skies and sunshine. 

We had to land in a different spot than normal because of the plethora of elephant seals on the beach.  There was no pathway through.  But that was fine because we got to land at the base of the glacier and listen to the chunks of ice calving off and crashing down the cliffs into the sea.  This place!  

We weren't in the thick of the king penguin colony because we couldn't get through the elephant seals.  But to be honest, I pretty much had my fill of king penguins by that point (I can't believe it either!) but of course that didn't stop me from taking a million photos anyway!

On our way into harbour

Julie and Amy, happier times for Amy's coat

Everyone is enjoying the sunshine

ok, that's enough, I suppose.  

Oh, wait, I almost forgot, Amy took a header into the mud on this landing.  And because it was so warm, she had her coat open so she got herself right good and muddy.  

Which meant, she had to bio-clean everything!  She took a go at her coat but ended up sending it to be laundered.  Lucky it was the last day in S. Georgia or she might have missed the next landing.  

We left Gold Harbour and headed into Cooper Bay.  No landings there.  Apparently it is difficult terrain, the colonies are far apart, and we learned later, we were running out of time in our little blue bubble.   So, zodiac operation as they call just zipping around in a zodiac.  Which, as you can imagine, leads to terrible photos.  But this was an exciting area because it was our first sightings of chinstrap and macaroni penguins.  

I think this is it for macaroni and those were my most terrible shots. 

Then the radio was a'cracklin'  Leopard Seal in the vicinity!  My camera was seriously crapping out so I have to see if I got any kind of photo.  I know Amy has a very good one.  I did!  Amy's is better but I didn't think I got one at all.  Yay!

Then onto the Chinstraps with some incredible scenery along the way. 

Chinstrap Penguins

And then back to zodiacing (can that be a verb?)

After Cooper Bay we were supposed to head into Drygalskifjord but just as we were getting on our way, the winds picked up.  Really picked up!  I was up on the stern and I couldn't move, I could barely breathe.  Announcement that we would not be able to enter the fjord.  And that the wind was so high, the ship decks were closed!  That was a first.  Here's my last photo as I was ushered inside.

There are two other ships in the area.  We learned at the briefing that they both left the area the day before to beat the storm.  But not our team, we took advantage of that amazing sunny day and then hit a hurricane.  The other two ships did too without the beautiful landing.  

I am signing off.  I am missing our first views of the penninsula!