St. Andrews Bay & Godthul, South Georgia
It’s been a busy day at the edge of the world.
We got an early start for our first landing on South Georgia, climbing into the Zodiacs and cruising in through the small surf break to the long grey beach at St. Andrews Bay before 6:00am, just as the first light of sunrise was brightening the calm waters and the mountains behind the bay.
Crowds of king penguins were there to greet us at the landing site, and as we hiked down the crest of the sandy beach toward the main breeding colony their numbers grew and grew and grew. Hundreds, thousands, tens and even hundreds of thousands of these magnificent, brash, beautiful birds strutted by, curious and self-absorbed by turns, covering the landscape around us like a living tide and filling the air with their braying cries.
In the near distance, peaks of raw ice and rock appeared and vanished again into the mists and clouds that formed and dissipated through the morning. Fur seals lounged on the grass behind the beach, skuas and sheathbills patrolled the air over the colony and elephant seal weaners snored noisily, oblivious to our presence. There were miracles of birth, tiny chicks peeping out from under their parent’s warm feathers, and there was death everywhere, bones of seals and penguins, corpses of chicks and adults in every stage of decomposition, all overwhelmed by the noisy frenetic business of everyday life.
South Georgia is the edge of the Antarctic. Situated below the polar front that defines the biological boundary of the Southern Ocean, it is truly an Antarctic island. But it is far enough north to be nearly as much under the influence of temperate ecosystems as that of the polar wilderness to the south. South Georgia is green! Tussock grass and many other plants thrive here, in great contrast to the shores of the White Continent, still fresh in our minds.
South Georgia also sits at the edge of the present biological epoch. We live in the Anthropocene, the age of Man, and this remote island has felt the transformative touch of our species, hosting whaling stations in the past and introduced rats and reindeer today. But part of the past lingers here; in fact it often dominates the few signs of the present. On wild beaches crowded with huge birds and seals, we have a rare opportunity to glimpse the magnificence and power of a world that is all but gone, a world of innocence and terrible beauty that once stretched from pole to pole.
And, of course, the shores of South Georgia are the edge of the sea. In the chill waters below the beaches and rocky headlands is yet another wild world, one of weird waving forests of kelp, home to a host of strange and wonderful creatures. All that I have said about the island of South Georgia applies equally to the seas around it. They are unique; they are damaged and yet they preserve rare treasures; they are changing.
All these edges, the edges of our world, meet in this incredible island. We are standing at the edge and the view is amazing.
