Moultke Harbor and Gold Harbor, South Georgia
It was an incredible South Georgia Island day. It was a day on incredible South Georgia Island. We had fog, wind, waves, and blue sky. We aborted one landing, inserted Plan B (or was it C), and made two more. We watched elephant seals battle, king penguins huddle, gentoo penguins scurry, and albatross soar. We heard the basso roars of bull elephant seals, the yelps of the newborn, the trumpeting of adult king penguins seeking a mate, the whistles of young king penguins asking to be fed, and the plaintive wail of the albatross. We saw glaciers spilling down from the steep mountainous interior of the island, filling meltwater streams where king penguins gather to molt before their next breeding attempt. It was a feast of the senses, and we were here to take it all in.
We spent our day near the northeastern corner of the island. Saint Andrews Bay was not for us this morning; too many seals on the beach, too little space for us to land. Plan B took us to Moultke Harbor, an indentation in Royal Bay, famous for the katabatic winds that rip down the face of the glaciers and into the fjord. They did, but the wind did not deter our enjoyment of the elephant seals on the beach, or the light-mantled sooty albatrosses soaring along the cliff face.
We moved to our afternoon landing site of Gold Harbor, home to a large colony of king penguins. The wind died, the sea smoothed, and the sky turned blue. Conditions change rapidly around South Georgia.
We have come at an ideal time: springtime and the breeding season of elephant seals. They cover the beaches in enormous numbers. Each female comes to give birth to a single, black pup that she then pumps full of very rich milk. The pup balloons in size ... but only for three weeks. Then it is abruptly abandoned and it must learn how to be an elephant seal on its own.
The females quickly enter estrous and invite the amorous advances of the bulls — if you can call what comes next "amorous." Male elephant seals fight violently to claim a section of beach and the right to mate with all females who have chosen that spot to bear and nurse their pup.
The enormous males that we call beachmasters are spaced along the beach, seemingly in sleepy repose but actually keeping an attentive eye on the next male down the beach, and any other males (variously called "peripheral males" or "sneaky fellers") who might try to mate with one of his females. Periods of tranquility are interrupted by bursts of activity when incursions occur. Often disputes are resolved by bluff and noise, but if the males are evenly matched and the intruder is determined, the battle is on. We watched in awe as two behemoths squared off and the clash of the titans was on. Young "oakum boy" king penguins scurried away, and cameras clicked until one of the males, defeated, backed down and departed the arena. Quiet returned to the beach of Gold Harbor.
