It turned out to be another very busy and snowy day yesterday, as we started in Godthul Bay with kayaking, hiking, and Zodiac cruises. Got to see our first King penguins up close and personal, as well as reindeer (imported by someone a while back – definitely not endemic) at a distance.

In the afternoon we went to Grytviken, an old whaling port, and now the government seat of the country, with a whopping 18 inhabitants, most of whom are part of the British Antarctic Service.

Grytviken is also the location of the grave site of Antarctic explorer, Ernest Shackleton.

Below is our GPS Track for yesterday as well as much of the rest of Sunday. Zoom in to see the location of various sites on land. There’s lots of detail there.

We woke to a cold and wet (snow/rain) day as we arrived at the south-eastern end of South Georgia. We were going to be starting our exploration of South Georgia from Cooper Bay, but the anchorage conditions were not good, so we’re heading to Drygalski Fjord.

However, the animal life signs at Cooper Bay were encouraging with lots of water fowl (petrels, I think) on or above the water, and in a brief span I counted dozes of seals frolicking in the water as well.

Our time zone just changed overnight as well, and we are now at GMT-2 (U.S. East Coast is at GMT-5 this time of year, for reference).

In case you were wondering, all of yesterday was spent at sea, with good size swells (and thus sporadic queasiness) and no obvious whale sightings, hence the relatively boring GPS track below. Also, no photos were taken yesterday. Gasp!

Wow! What a day! Blue whales to the right of us, blue whales to the left of us, and fin whales everywhere in between.

And that was just the morning.

The afternoon was spent with more penguins and fur seals than there are people in the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao) where we live. Pictures and stories on that tomorrow. But let me just say, it was freaking incredible.

For now, here’s the GPS track for the last 24 hours or so.

We arrived this morning at Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica around 7:15am (which coincided with when we work up). We spent the late morning on a Zodiac tour and doing a landing at Cape Lookout on the southwestern part of the island, where we encountered our first Macaroni penguins and elephant seals (after which the island is named).

In the afternoon we visited Point Wild on the northeastern part of the island (see previous post for some photos).

Tomorrow we’re due to make landfall in the South Orkney Islands.

The GPS track for the last day or so can be found below:

We’re on the open sea tonight and thus have a decent Internet connection, so I figured I would catch up on the GPS tracks at least.

Today we visited Deception Island, a dormant volcano whose caldera is filled with the ocean. It’s also the site of an old whaling station, last used in the 1930s, but inhabited as an outpost until the volcano erupted in 1970.

From there we visited Bailey Head to view (from the ship) a Chinstrap penguin colony, and then toured (again by ship) Maxwell Bay at King George Island, home to a large number of countries’ Antarctic research stations.

Tomorrow we expect to be at Elephant Island, famous for its role in Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance saga.

GPS track for today is below:

Yesterday we visited Port Lockroy, a station which is part of the British Antarctic Survey, and also houses the world’s southern-most public post office. Following that we went to visit one of the world’s largest Gentoo penguin colonies on Cuverville Island.

Our GPS track for the day is below: