King Haakon Bay, South Georgia
This morning we arrived at King Haakon Bay and it was about 90 years ago Ernest Shackleton and five companions crawled ashore here after traveling 16 days in a very small boat from Elephant Island in Antarctica. While the Endeavour can hardly be compared with the James Caird, beyond saying that both of them floated on water, we got a little taste of the Endurance adventure on this windward side of South Georgia. We took to the Zodiacs in a freshening breeze – well, a strong wind really – that we feared would become a full gale. There was swell breaking on shore, but there was plenty of help to hold the boats and we delivered boatloads of people to shore; virtually everybody on board wanted to make this historic landing at Peggotty Camp. A little wet, a bit chilled and more than a little awed, we stood around with some king penguins. King penguins, so tall and so elegant with their egg yolk orange ear patches and eraser pink bill swooshes! If you sit down they will approach, waddling and standing as tall as they can, almost on their tippy-toes; if they are higher than you, they feel confident enough to try a quick peck to see what you are made of. Oh, no fear; you can hardly feel them through all the clothes. If you are too nervous, just stand up and they will keep their distance and you are safe, well, safe until you notice that dark blur out of the corner of your eye… a fur seal in full charge! Just as you turn to run, it registers in your brain that this maddened fur seal hardly reaches the top of your boots! It is just a baby waiting for mom to come back and to kill time, it is practicing its raging beach master act and then it quickly scurries back into the tussock grass. Tussock grass? The hills are green with vegetation, flowering plants, well, they’re a bit short, but still… And now it occurs to you that this is definitely a different sort of place. And the under sea? Yes, it’s different too: more color (see the picture), more algae, even giant kelp, like home in Monterey. It’s all new now as the adventure continues.
This morning we arrived at King Haakon Bay and it was about 90 years ago Ernest Shackleton and five companions crawled ashore here after traveling 16 days in a very small boat from Elephant Island in Antarctica. While the Endeavour can hardly be compared with the James Caird, beyond saying that both of them floated on water, we got a little taste of the Endurance adventure on this windward side of South Georgia. We took to the Zodiacs in a freshening breeze – well, a strong wind really – that we feared would become a full gale. There was swell breaking on shore, but there was plenty of help to hold the boats and we delivered boatloads of people to shore; virtually everybody on board wanted to make this historic landing at Peggotty Camp. A little wet, a bit chilled and more than a little awed, we stood around with some king penguins. King penguins, so tall and so elegant with their egg yolk orange ear patches and eraser pink bill swooshes! If you sit down they will approach, waddling and standing as tall as they can, almost on their tippy-toes; if they are higher than you, they feel confident enough to try a quick peck to see what you are made of. Oh, no fear; you can hardly feel them through all the clothes. If you are too nervous, just stand up and they will keep their distance and you are safe, well, safe until you notice that dark blur out of the corner of your eye… a fur seal in full charge! Just as you turn to run, it registers in your brain that this maddened fur seal hardly reaches the top of your boots! It is just a baby waiting for mom to come back and to kill time, it is practicing its raging beach master act and then it quickly scurries back into the tussock grass. Tussock grass? The hills are green with vegetation, flowering plants, well, they’re a bit short, but still… And now it occurs to you that this is definitely a different sort of place. And the under sea? Yes, it’s different too: more color (see the picture), more algae, even giant kelp, like home in Monterey. It’s all new now as the adventure continues.
