Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 26 – Silver Wind, South Georgia

Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 25 – Silver Wind, South Georgia can be found here.

It’s getting difficult to hold multiple days in my head. Each post is typically one day behind where we are in the real world, which isn’t usually a problem – except that so much has been happening that I’m having a hard time recalling what happened when.

I blame South Georgia. It’s too much to think about all at once – it’s a life-changing place to visit, every bit as transformative as the Galapagos.

So where are we, again? Oh, right. Eating breakfast after waking around 7:45 am.

We need to clear into the South Georgia government offices at Grytviken today, which makes for a later start. Amazingly, civil servants from the United Kingdom are not keen on getting underway at five in the morning.

South Georgia is a British Overseas Territory – like Montserrat or the Falkland Islands – but there are no permanent inhabitants here, only a rotating crew of researchers, scientists and their support staff.

These officials apparently have been asked a lot of inane questions, and have an official collection of curt responses here. (Another sign of the Britishness of the whole affair.) My personal favourite is “I wish to start a business on [South Georgia], or incorporate my company.” to which the reply is “This is not possible [you idiot].” (Commentary is mine, but clearly implied.)

We wrap breakfast early and so I duck into the briefing from the South Georgia Heritage Trust. All proceeds from store sales go to support the excellent work being done there, including the local museum, preservation of exhibits specifically related to Sir Ernest Shackleton, the training of biosecurity sniffer dogs, and the eradication of rats and other pests from South Georgia.

The initiative that most caught my eye is their effort to restore the Whaling Manager’s Villa – the place that Shackleton reached after his epic 800 mile journey from Elephant Island to save his crew. The building is currently in a state of complete disrepair and urgent work is needed to preserve it for future generations. Further details are available here.

But all the other programs are also hugely vital – the island is a true ecological success story and now boasts many millions of penguins, fur seals and other birds and animals.

It’s then time to get dressed for the zodiac ride to Grytviken, the former whaling station turned research station. But first we needed to pass our government biosecurity inspection.

Biosecurity on South Georgia is no joke – the government has invested millions upon millions of dollars to remove invasive specials, and they are not prepared to have other pests or seeds go ashore. So every article of outerwear needs to be carefully inspected to remove any potential contaminants. Government officials conduct spot checks and – if Silversea fails – it could affect future landings in South Georgia.

Thankfully we passed with a 100% success rate, but I think the whole process has given us all a very real appreciation for the importance of biosecurity.

Off to Grytviken!

The Grytviken cemetary is mostly the resting place of whalers and sailors, with a few notable exceptions…

…Namely the Boss himself, as well as Frank Wild – Shackleton’s second-in-command.

We toasted to Shackleton with a very fine Macallan poured by the Captain. It was an emotional moment.

The forming whaling station, which closed in 1966 – now the site of various museums, shops and offices

An adult fur seal and pups – in the early 20th century fur seals were thought to be extinct in this region, but they have recovered well in South Georgia

You can still get married in the Grytviken Norwegian Anglican church, also known as the Whalers Church! And they let you ring the bell (once per visitor) – another passenger pulled the cord really hard so it rang repeatedly. We made it clear that our children were not responsible for the cacophony.

The question is – which will get back to Canada first, us or our postcard?

Roughly 1 in 1,000 fur seals are blondies – it’s our lucky day!

… But all of them are adorable.

The musuem contained some fascinating exhibits, including this one on showing a whaler’s quarters:

And their communication equipment:

We also enjoyed seeing the notice board, where various passengers / crew of ships can leave messages for one another:

After reading Endurance, it was fascinating to see the scale of this lifeboat replica. I’d thought it would be larger!

The Fabio of fur seals

If our daughter could be granted one wish, it would have been to bring this fur seal – dubbed Aquamarine – home with us

Hmm. This might delay boarding…

But we did eventually get back aboard ship, and head off to lunch:

My wife and I had the rainbow trout:

A rare miss from the kitchen – still has some fin attached to it, and it was quite bony.

But the coffee was excellent as always…

As was our daughter’s ice cream sundae.

Then up to the deck to get a few more pictures of the stunning scenery:

The research station is in the foreground, the former whaling station further back

Off to trivia, where we again tied for first place. I’d like to tell you where we each managed to triumph, but the intense visuals of seals and penguins have pushed all other knowledge from my brain.

We then anchored off of Jason Harbour, where we depart for a zodiac cruise amidst the brash ice:

This is apparently a shelter from the whaling days, where people could overnight as needed or leave messages for one another. A reassuring thought amidst these remote surroundings.

Elephant seals! Or me on a sea day…

We were thrilled to be back amidst the ice once more. Our time in the pack ice and amongst the icebergs in Greenland was a huge highlight of our first summer of cruising. We hadn’t realized how much we’d missed it.

Back to the ship to undress from the zodiac cruise and get dressed for dinner. Someone on board was heard to remark, “All I ever do on this ship is dress and undress!” and there is a very large grain of truth to that. (To be fair we also sometimes drink champagne and hot chocolate.)

Off to the briefing – weather seems promising for our planned landing tomorrow at St. Andrew’s Bay, the world’s largest king penguin colony. Three landings during a South Georgia trip seems too good to contemplate. There’s also a zodiac cruise planned for Ocean Harbour, conditions permitting.

Now to dinner:

My wife and I had the Tom Kai Gai soup to start:

Followed by the duck:

The swells had picked up once more so we skipped dessert and headed straight back to the room, where we perused tomorrow’s Chronicle:

Then it was time to head to bed. We are still in blackout mode to prevent unwanted avian arrivals, but here is a teaser from tomorrow:

Conditions look perfect, don’t they? Appearances can be deceiving…