South Georgia is home to incredibly beautiful spots and overwhelming wildlife. On this first day of exploring the wonders of this island we certainly found convincing proof! The first wakeup call sounded at 04:45, and quite a few guests took the opportunity to get ashore before sunrise. We were at Gold Harbour, one of South Georgia’s most spectacular landing spots. This site has the form of an amphitheater, with a wide, flat beach framed by lush slopes and steep rocks with a glacier on top. The beach is home to a colony of king penguins as well as fur seals and elephant seals. Those who got up at normal wakeup time were shuttled to the beach just after breakfast and spent the whole morning ashore. A group of hikers went uphill and walked on a carpet of lush, soft vegetation towards Gold Head. Heavy snowfall periodically blocked the grand view from the top. Some of the hikers got to see a couple of light-mantled sooty albatrosses soaring under the steep cliffs.
After a good lunch and a quick lie-down, St. Andrews Bay was in sight. This wide bay holds the largest colony of king penguins on South Georgia. The bay is fully exposed to the open sea and also to strong winds that frequently plummet from the icecap covering the southern end of the Allardyce Range. Today the landing conditions unfortunately were not favorable, so we were confined to taking a look up on deck, where we had a view of the huge number of penguins nesting on this site. Instead we headed for Ocean Harbour, which provides more sheltered landing conditions. Just as we had turned around and set course for Ocean Harbour, a Southern right whale was spotted. This is one of the rarest whales to be seen in these waters.
Somewhat delayed by the extraordinary whale encounter, we went ashore at Ocean Harbour, an old whaling station set up by Norwegians in 1909. The beach was crowded with fur seal pups, and there were masses of fur seals and also a few elephant seals inside the beach. We hiked to a small burial site with a few white crosses, a proof of former whaling activity. We also went by an old brick house and the remains of machinery from the whaling period. Due to the slight delay after our right whale encounter, the afternoon Recap was cancelled and we enjoyed dinner after a very memorable day.
