Fortuna Bay / Stromness Harbor
On a day known for costumes everyone seemed to be in the spirit. This Halloween found us on the shores of Fortuna Bay and Stromness Harbor surrounded by birds and mammals alike. Not only were we human visitors in our various fineries but we came upon a local that smacked of Halloween as well. Fortuna Bay hosts a king penguin colony in the thousands yet amongst this multitude of repetitive counter-shading one individual stood out above the rest. Emerging through intermittent snow flurries and blustery winds came a penguin whom, though similar in stature and strut to the rest, seemed to be wearing a costume of his own. Instead of sporting a white breast like his brethren, this lone melanistic king penguin stood alone by having no white feathers on his body what-so-ever. Through a very rare genetic mutation this individual has made it to adulthood with an excessive amount of melanin in his feathers, so much so that these feathers are all black with the exception of a little splash of yellow on the head. Confident in this individuality he sauntered through the colony as though nothing were amiss and even proceeded to feed his seemingly “normal” chick. Whether this fluffy brown king penguin youngster molts into a white breast or black is yet to be determined; the confidence of its parent is admirable.
From this electrifying morning filled with every weather pattern South Georgia could throw at us we rounded the bay from Fortuna and headed south en route to one of the islands most historied whaling stations, Stromness. It was here that Sir Ernest Shackleton and two of his shipmates made contact with civilization for the first time in nearly two years in their quest to seek help for 25 stranded comrades (two of which were left on the other side of S. Georgia). In decidedly less dramatic fashion we too made our way into Stromness (from the opposite approach of course) and spent the afternoon backtracking the final mile and a half of their epic cross island journey to get to the station via King Haakon Bay. Along the way we endured only wind but did find a couple herds of reindeer, a small Gentoo penguin colony and what is left of this historic whaling operation. Rusting and dilapidated, Stromness not only represents an era gone by but still harbors the feel of that bloodied past. Through the hulking remains of blubber tanks to the bone white crosses that punctuate the human remains this place seemed a ghost town that could only be fully appreciated on a day such as Halloween.
