South Georgia (two) - Salisbury Plains and Prince Olav Harbour & Whaling Station

After that first day in South Geogia, I said, they can't top that.  Spoiler alert:  they top it pretty much every day! I am writing this on November 4, our last day in S. Geogia.  As you can clearly see, I am so far behind.  There is no time.  NO TIME!!  I mean, a girl's gotta nap.  And zodiac, and shore land, and eat three times a day.  And attend daily recaps and briefings on what's on the agenda for the next day.  Oh, and last but definitely not least, clean my boots! 

Boot cleaning is a constant.  If your boots don't meet S. Georgia, and therefore the Expedition team's high standards, you get called down to the mudroom.  Which they kindly call the Boot Walk of Shame.  I am happy to say, I have not been called for the boot walk of shame (yet). South Georgian inspectors come on board and if we don't pass their Bio-inspection, the ship is not allowed to let passengers onto the island.  No one wants to be the reason we can't shoreland!  NO ONE! 

On to day two.  November 2, 2022

I am starting to forget details.  We thought we saw a lot of king penguins on day one but that was nothing compared to Salisbury Plains.  Our leader Jonathan was over the moon with the sea and wind conditions. 

He told us several times that in his 20+ years of coming to South Georgia, he has only been able to land in our primo location three times.  There are several reasons a shore-landing might not work.  In this location it is usually the high swells.  Sometimes it is too many animals on shore (day four, wait for it). 

We landed right in the middle of the beach, right in the middle of the king penguin colony, and right in the middle of a mass of adorable fur seals.  Once we got up over the beach and past the seals, penguins! Penguins as far as the eye could see. 

There were lots of fur seals as well.  They have much sweeter faces than the elephant seals. 

But the real show was the king penguin colony. It wasn't great weather, it started to snow and the wind was pretty cold. 

Coming in from sea

Besides the wildlife, the scenery was amazing.  Here are some shots from the ship and from shore.  

But first, Breezy Day: Self Portrait

Our afternoon landing was cancelled due to high winds.  But the ship's captain decided he could navigate the ship into Prince Olav Bay even though this ship had never been taken in as far as we went.  He got us right to the end so we could see the abandoned whaling station.  Here are some pictures of the bay and the station (from a distance)

Of course, we all get our knickers in a knot trying to get photos of the animals and mountains and the whaling station, not realizing that the very next day, we would get even better.  They don't tell us where we are going until the daily brief and recap at 6:30 at the end of the day.  Everything is so unpredictable, I guess they don't want to get our hopes up too early.  And even 12 hours ahead is sometimes too far in advance to be correct.  

We ended the day with a video on Whale Shark research, led by our team leader Jonathon and some other members of our expedition team, Simon and Jenni.  I heard the next day that while we were watching the documentary, the team was down in the mudroom rescrubbing our boots.  Tomorrow is the real test, we are heading into Grytviken, where the S. Georgia government offices are, including the biohazard team.  If we fail, we are screwed!