Farewell South Georgia

Feb 7 2015 Gold Harbour: 54o38'S/035o56'W
Feb 7 2015 Drygalski Fjord: 54o49'S/035o58'W
Feb 8 2015 Royal Bay: 54o32'S/035o58'W
Feb 8 2015 Cooper Bay: 54o47'S/035o48'W

It has been an extraordinary 4 days in South Georgia. Sunshine and blue sky, every day, with winds varying from 0 – 80 knots (quite a range).

This area is known for its diverse sea and birdlife – and we’ve met & seen large numbers of each. Albatross, penguins, petrels, terns and of course whales.

This morning we were at Royal Bay where we zodiac’d to see Macaroni penguins with very cute yellow crests, then to a colony of King Penguins and Fur seals. This was a somewhat untouched area, where few boats travel and the animals are not afraid of people. In fact one little Fur seal decided to swim out to our zodiac and try to board it. We did our best to ignore his interest in us (not easy to do!), and he swam off.

A rather large swell made getting back on the boat somewhat entertaining, but we all made it back on board safely and we were off once more.

Over lunch we travelled to Cooper Bay (near Cooper Island). This is one magical place – Chinstrap penguins live and breed here, as do Gentoo, King and various Elephant seals dotted around. Inside the cove the water was a beautiful aquamarine colour, and it was wonderful to just relax and watch the animals, kayakers and people meandering about in zodiacs.

We have had the most amazing “send-off” from South Georgia this evening – at about 5:45pm Woody announced that those on the Bridge were seeing whale blows ahead and on both sides of the ship. Just out of the shower, I rapidly dressed, grabbed my camera and jacket, changed the card in the camera and headed outside and up one level.

What a view – whale blows were coming from at least 6-8 whales to starboard, and 2 to port! Just glorious in the late afternoon sun. Some came quite close, showed themselves to be Humpbacks, and completed their visit with a flourish of their tail fluke as they dived for krill.

More became visible as we sailed further south along the coat. I could see one reasonably far away that was blowing a “V” shaped spout- perhaps a Minke whale? It was starting to get cold as the sun was getting lower in the sky – we’d now seen 15-18 whales just today - in fact the daily briefing session was cancelled due to all this activity.

I was standing next to a young woman from Australia when we spotted a high spout. Could this be another Blue whale? Or was this a Fin whale?

Soon after, Annie announced that we’d seen the 3rd Blue whale for this trip. This really is extraordinary – estimates are that there are only 12,000 Blue whales left in the world. How very privileged we have been to have seen three!

But for now we’ve rounded the southern end of South Georgia, Cape Disappointment and are heading south west to the Antarctic Peninsula. For us it has definitely not been a disappointment (see next post)-it has been amazing.

But now we're sailing to the continent Capt James Cook never found. We’re planning for rough seas – but hopefully we'll continue to see sunshine!