WE LANDED on Elephant Island

Tuesday, January 24, 2012  10:00am 34*

Icebergs, Glaciers and Shackleton’s Landing

Chinstraps on an iceflow

Out of the “Bet Cave” at 6:15 and up to the Observation Lounge, I was in search of icebergs,  Amazingly the sun was out and I was able to see some patches of blue sky with low puffy clouds ahead. I thought I could make out some icebergs in the distance, but was unsure if they were really icebergs or clouds.  As the ship continued its journey, I was seeing two icebergs on the port side.  How exciting was that! I sat alone in the lounge drinking a cup of tea, enjoying the solitude.  Occasionally someone would come in and I pointed out what I thought were icebergs.  Slowly the lounge got a small crowd and we inched closer to Elephant Island.  Tall, tall craggy mountains appeared in the distance.  It was magical to see the mist rise and land appear. 

At breakfast, I was talking with friends and we all agreed just how fortunate we are, witnessing all this glorious beauty around us.  As a child and even up into my 40s, I never considered coming to Antarctica.  We decided we are here because we have cruise friends who have been here and returned home safe and sound….. so we too could do the same.

As we anchored off Point Wild, the beauty of the glaciers and rugged peaks beaconed me to get my camera.  Standing on the back deck, out of the wind, I heard penguins first, them smelled them and finally I saw them on top of the stumpy columns, up on hillsides and down at water level.

Our Expedition Leader, Robin had never been able to land on Elephant Island in his 10 years in the Antarctic.  Well, our weather juju continued, much to the dismay of the team.  Each of us touched foot on Elephant Island.  

Shoshanah, our zodi driver took us out to an iceberg with chinstrap penguins resting on top. We went around the berg and spotted two humpback whales going by us.  We ran with them for a bit then returned back to the iceberg and our chinstraps.  Those persistent little birds were unstoppable to get back on that berg.  As much as they tried to jump back up, very few succeeded.  Even with our encouragement, they never gave up, but few made it.  

Beth on Elephant Island

Our landing spot for today was Point Wild, where Shackelton’s team stayed for four months through the winter, while they waited for the return of their leader.  Lucky for us, we have the statue of their rescuer, in our pictures as evidence of our setting foot here!  Very few have been able to land here.  Usually the waters are too rough to make landing possible.  (Silversea wrote up a press release on our landing and it is posted on their website.  We also heard that an Italian newspaper reported our landing, maybe to take our success away from the Costa disaster.) 

Five more days of juju to remain…… In my true wisdom (haha), I told Juan Carlos that one person from our 123 passengers onboard should be on any other South Georgia cruise to ensure good weather in the future. Oh, and we would be a part of the Expedition Team. He totally agreed with me.

Besides our amazing landing, another delightful thing happened today.  As we were waiting our turn on the zodiacs, our group was last today, we had another ship come up, pass us and anchor right in front of the glacier.  Now we were kind of amazed at this.  Apparently this ship, the GAP Expedition Monrovia was to anchor at 5:00 this morning.  Something happened and they were late, so our zodiacs got out first.  As we were standing on the back deck enjoying watching our zodiacs zoom all over the area, we noticed a zodiac come across to water from the Monrovia with just the driver and one other person.  At our hatch, one of the cute butlers, Catalino, down the hall was standing there and went back in.  We found out shortly that the person in the Monrovia zodiac was the wife of our butler.  She had been granted permission to come over to visit her husband.  Now this popped into my mind.  “Honey, let’s make a date on January 24, 2012 on Elephant Island.”  How wonderful that must have been for these two special people who rarely get to see each other.  

Next stop, the last continent!!!

Gold Harbour January 21, 2012 7:30am 38*

Well you think nothing can surpass what you have just seen, then another spot on South Georgia just amazes you.  We are now spending our third day on South Georgia and this island just fascinates me.  This morning we took the zodiac to Gold Harbour.  With a view of a hanging glacier, Aeillo, our zodiac driver tells us that when she can here 10 years ago, the glacier came all the way down to the water. As we get to shore, Robin, the expedition leader, tells us that we can see the elephant seals, some fur seals, a large colony of king penguins and a few gentoos scattered around.  Albatross and other sea birds live here too.

Many of us walked first toward the large group of elephant seals.  These seals are up to 5 years old and still youngsters with the juvenile males weighing 2 tons.  As they get older they can weigh up to 6 tons.  There is a lot of playful jostling learning how to become the beach master and fight to be the head seal.  Two huge males make loud roaring sounds, bump chests, chew on each other’s chest then fall over on top of each other.  Their energy level is very low, so they can only fight for a few minutes then stop and collapse in a heap.  We can’t get to close to this action and want no part of being in the middle of this action.  

Gold Harbour is surrounded by tall mountains.  Our Expedition Team has flagged off an area for us to climb.  Not being much of a climber, I decide to go a little bit up just to get the view below.  In all this tussoc grass, we can see young fur seals and pups.  They are now becoming my favorite of all the animals here on South Georgia.  They are the cutest and most fun to shoo off.  As I am climbing up, I hear what sounds like an airplane.  My first reaction is, “An airplane on South Georgia?”  As I turn around, I see the remains of an avalanche and think, “Who pushed the avalanche button?”  This trip continues to amaze all of us.  I survey the area below then begin my decent back to the beach.

Young male elephant seals sparring

All around me are large groups of elephant seals who continue to do this playful chest bumping practice.  I decide to walk toward the beach and I see Aeillo, one of our Expedition Team, motions me to come forward.  I take a quick look behind and see to male youth going at it.  I walk toward the group of people gathered and watching our show.  As we stand there enjoying all around us, we step this way and that, but still in one location.  Suddenly we look around us and we are cornered by the water, penguins and elephant seals.

Cooper Bay – our first zodiac trip

The ship repositioned at lunch time and afterwards we had our first zodiac tour. Dressing warmly due to being on the water for an hour and now our weather was overcast, we got into the zodiac for a ride around the bay.  Here we saw our first iceberg way way off in the distance.  As we rode around, Hans Peter, our naturalist showed us bull kelp growing all along the rocks.  It looked like long black hair flowing in the water or liquid black licorice.  As we road past, the kelp moved and swayed with the motion our zodiac made.  

With everything looking dark green and black, it was kind of spooky, in a way.  This is a special spot where four different species of penguins live in one ara: the cute gentoos, the stately kings; which we would see for our last time, the macaronis and our first chinstraps. Our ride around the fur seal colonies was so much fun.  It seemed like every seal we saw turned their heads to look at us and we were looking at them.  They are so inquisitive and cute.  Our favorite was one blonde fur seal, who we named Blondee.  Being so rare, everyone was intent on getting the best photo of this bright spot in our green, black afternoon. 

What a good, good day, but our last on South Georgia.  Is there anyway Antarctica could be better than this?

More on South Georgia

South Georgia Island Friday January 20, 2012

Stromness 9:00AM 40*

Since I have been indulging in all the lovely food and drink on the ship, today I decided to take the 2K walk up from Stromness, an old deserted whaling station to Shackelton’s Waterfall.  Some brave explorers took the 5K walk from Fortuna Bay over the mountain to the Waterfall and then down to Stromness.  On my way inland, we were greeted by our friendly fur seals…. So many cute pups along the way.  A glacier had cut a wide riverbed down to the beach and the seals and a few King penguins lived here peacefully.  Just a few a reindeer were encountered as we got further back in the valley.  They were skiddish so didn’t stay around long as we approached.  The walk led us through marshy boggy grass and it was easy to sink in.  As I was crossing on small creek, I went one knee in the much, but luckily my waterproof pants saved me and I continued my trek.  

Beth at Shackleton's Waterfall

As we got off the zodiac, we were able to make out the red dots on the ridge who were the 30 some passengers who had taken Shackelton’s Walk. As we got  closer to the waterfall, the descending red dots got closer to us.  We were able to be the first to congratulate these explorers as they completed their morning adventure.  I stopped and admired the falls, rested for a few minutes and turned around to return to the shore.  This time, I took the rocky river bed, which was actually a little easier than the marsh bank.  All in all, my 4K walk was a nice way to spend the morning even though it was one minute quite breezy in need to my gaiter and hood, the next minute so still with the sun beating down and needung to unzip my parka.   Such is the life of an explorer!

The ship left Stromness as we enjoyed lunch and the lovely show of fur seals frolicking in the water beside our ship.  

Grytviken (grit – vick- n)  1:50pm 39* winds 49 km/h

Betty & Beth at Whaler's Cemetery

Well, all I can say is this was another amazing afternoon.  The entire ship disembarked in the bay at Grytviken.  We took the zodiacs over to the Whaler’s Cemetery and toasted Sir Ernest Shackleton.  He is buried here along with many others. Shackleton actually died in Uruguay and story has it his wife insisted he be moved to Grytviken.  Just a few weeks ago, the remains of Frank Wild, Shackleton’s number one man,  were taken from somewhere in South Africa and moved to Whaler’s Cemetery to be with his boss.  He is now resting on Shackleton’s left.  Each of us were given a glass of champagne and Peter, our historian, shared some history, quoted two poems and we toasted Sir Shackleton.  Amazingly as all this was going on, ice pellets fell all around us.  This continued for most of our time in this old whaling station.  Now all the old station tanks are a rusty brown-orange.  Quite a sight to see in the area of fur seals, elephant seals and King penguins.  There is a church, museum, post office and gift shop.  Who knew that this far south we’d be able to spend some money for souvenirs. 

January 19, 2012 continued

Fortuna Bay   5:00pm 38*

After two fabulous outings this morning, we thought nothing could top this day……. Boy was  I wrong.  A totally different terrain was ahead of us.  Here we saw hundreds of fur seal, a few elephant seal and more king penguins.  I know you are probably thinking, so what was so different about this place,  Just more of the same.  Here at Fortuna Bay was a huge flat area with small creeks.  In the distance was a large king penguin colony and reindeer.  Not indigenous to South Georgia, reindeer were brought in by the whalers in the early 1900s as a food source.  Betty wanted a photo of them, so Andi and I walked through the crowds of penguins and seals, just enjoying the playful behaviors of these animals.  We got hissed at a lot by the fur seal pups.  They come across as so mean but inside are just sweeties.  I think they may be my favorite animals here on South Georgia.  After a couple of hours, it seemed like, we turned around and slowly walked back to the landing sight, cleaned our boots on the boot brushes, hopped in the zodiac and rode back to the ship. 

Lucky for us, our ship stayed nestled in the bay overnight.  This made of a nice shower before dinner with no rocking and calm waters for resting for the night.

South Georgia Island - Day 2 -Friday January 20, 2012

Stromness 9:00AM 40*

Beth at Shackleton's Waterfall

Since I have been indulging in all the lovely food and drink on the ship, today I decided to take the 2K walk up from Stromness, an old deserted whaling station to Shackelton’ Waterfall.  Some brave explorers to the 5K walk from Fortuna Bay over the mountain to the Waterfall and then down to Stromness.  On the way in, we were greeted by our friendly fur seals…. So many cute pups along the way.  A glacier had cut a wide riverbed down to the beach and the seals and a few King penguins lived here peacefully.  Just a few a reindeer were encountered as we got further back in the valley.  They were skiddish so didn’t stay around long as we approached.  The walk led us through marshy boggy grass and it was easy to sink in.  As I was crossing on small creek, I went one knee in the much, but luckily my waterproof pants saved me and I continued my trek.  

As we got off the zodiac, we were able to make out the red dots on the ridge who were the 30 some passengers who had taken Shackelton’s Walk. As we got  closer to the waterfall, the descending red dots got closer to the falls.  We were able to be the first to congratulate these explorers as completed they morning adventure.  I stopped and admired the fall, rested for a few minutes and turned around to return to the shore.  This time, I took the rocky river bed, which was actually a little easier than the marsh bank.  All in all, my 4K walk was a nice way to spend the morning even though it was one minute quite breezy in need to my gaiter and hood, the next minute so still with the sun beating down and need to unzip my parka.   Such is the life of an explorer!  The ship left Stromness as we enjoyed lunch and the lovely show of fur seals frolicking in the water beside our ship. 

Gyrtviken (grit – vick- n)  1:50pm 39* winds 49 km/h

Betty & Beth toasting at Whaler's Cementary

Well, all I can say is this was another amazing afternoon.  The entire ship disembarked in the bay at Gyrtviken.  We took the zodiacs over to the Whaler’s Cemetery and toasted to Sir Ernest Shackleton.  He is buried there along with many others. Shackleton actually died in Uraguay and story has it his wife insisted me be moved to Gyrtviken.  Just a few weeks ago, the remains of Frank Wild were taken from somewhere in South Africa and moved to Whaler’s Cemetery to be with his boss.  He is now resting to Shackleton’s left.  Each of us were given a glass of champagne and Peter, our historian, told us some history, quoted two poems and we toasted Sir Shackleton.  Amazingly as all this was going on, ice pellets fell all around us.  They continued for most of our time in this old whaling station.  Now all the old station tanks are a rusty brown-orange.  Quite a sight to see in the area of fur seals, elephant seals and King penguins.  There is a church, museum, post office and gift shop.  Who knew that this far south we’d be able to spend some money for souvenirs.