Gold Harbour, South Georgia
There is a reason why South Georgia is difficult to visit. Precipitous mountains are the first site that greet any visitor to the island, their high peaks fortifying the coastline with steep cliffs of weathered rock. This subantarctic sierra is breached only by steep sided valleys, the rock supplanted by slowly flowing glaciers. Grinding rivers of ice descend from the island’s interior until finally plunging to the sea as yet another barrier to those seeking refuge. The fjords and valleys of South Georgia can funnel winds along their corridors regardless of a wind’s origin and they even create unique wind events called katabatic winds where dense cold air tumbles down valley at dangerous speeds. Yet these steep sides and glacially carved valleys and bays were just what we needed today. Because of South Georgia’s glacial history, it is fringed with coves, bays and fjords along both east and west shores. Today we made the most our of the strong conditions and visited the most protected part of the island at a place called Gold Harbour, a site we visited just a few days ago.
Our last visit to Gold Harbour was less than a week ago, but in this part of the world, seasons are short and things happen quickly. It should surprise no one that in that short period of time, the beach has changed. A carcass that was once a scrum of feathered scavengers converting elephant seal mass into usable energy is now a cage of ribs untouched and ignored. Weaner elephant seals were a little less plump and a little more mobile as they build their muscles and work off some of that baby fat. There were certainly a few less oakum boys in the king penguin colony but our callow eyes cannot compute the loss as we walk around and over shaggy brown bits of ground.
Female Southern elephant seals have also begun their mad, hopeful dash to sea for the first time in weeks. Internal clocks and a pang of hunger lead these mothers to abandon a sole pup on a bustling beach. Before freedom from terrestrial locomotion, these ladies must first pass through a horde of male seals. This blubbery gauntlet moves with purpose as each female inchworms to the water. It’s a veritable last chance to dance.
How quickly the calm can be broken with the movement of one undulating body and a splash of water.
Our departure from South Georgia and journey to Antarctica has begun. We leave behind the growing number of Antarctic fur seals, fat from a good season of krill, as they reclaim beaches once rife with rotting seal carcasses stripped of their valuable pelt. Today they fight with vigor as more and more fur seals stake a claim of real estate. A population once threatened with extinction now numbers in the millions. Just before we lost sight of Cape Disappointment on the island’s southern shore, a dozen or more blows were spotted to the starboard side. With so many whales in the area, we absolutely had to take a look. The waters surrounding South Georgia were heavily whaled within the last 100 years so the sight of this many whales could not be taken for granted. With patience and great ship handling, we were able to commune, even if just briefly, with fin whales crashing through the choppy seas. This, the fastest of the great whales, was once the most difficult of whales to catch and subdue. Now, we watch these streamlined giants with awe and fascination. As luck would have it, amidst the stark dorsal fins and dark backs of the fin whales, a true giant was spotted. With a mottled steel blue color and an absurdly small dorsal fin we spotted the most massive of them all, the true leviathan, the blue whale. The dozen fin whales and one blue whale probably represent more biomass than all the thousands of animals at Gold Harbour, making each individual animal even more important to this system. Within sight of the same island used as a base to slaughter and process these behemoths, these whales give us hope that mankind has not gone too far and that the whale populations can come back. Without us, wildlife can at least have the chance flourish.
