Home → Triplogs & photo galleries → Antarctic 2013/14 → FI, SG, SSI, Antarctica 2013/11/01-23 → Gallery 2: South Georgia

Photo Gallery South Georgia

Another three days at sea – pretty calm and lots of birds around the ship at most times – took us to South Georgia, this jewel of nature and wildlife in the Southern Ocean.South Georgia has got a reputation for difficult weather and sea conditions, but we were lucky (an important feature that remained with us for most of the trip) and got some amazing landings. Salisbury Plain was a bit grey and wet, but we made it ashore and to the King penguins, something not every can claim who has been close to those surf beaches. It was really only Prion Island where we could not land, both westerly winds and easterly seas made it just impossible.

Grytviken is South Georgia’s best natural harbour and accordingly mostly easy, still a great stopp that has a lot to offer – and so is St. Andrews Bay in its very unique way, a place where you should never expect to be able to land, you need to be really lucky to do so. We were lucky and got an amazing afternoon with South Georgia’s biggest King penguin colony and lots of mighty Elephant seals.

Next early morning, Gold Harbour, many a guide’s favourite for good reasons – wildlife and scenery, and it worked beautifully, from sunny moments to near zero visibility due to snow showers being rushed through by gusts. Every kind of light you can imagine within a few early morning hours. Then, we got to see Maccaroni penguins and some amazing bits of coastal scenery, before having a look into Drygalski Fjord, which was, however, mostly hidden behind snow showers. Anyway, we have had more than our share of beautiful South Georgia, time to leave and set course – for the South Sandwich Islands! Guess how excited we were on board … (and tired, after those three days!).