22.11. Landings in South Georgia
I start with a quotation from a book: "South Georgia is a jewel to be treasured. It is extremely beautiful and no one can fail to be stirred by the sight of the rugged grandeur of the mountains and glaciers set in a sea that may be so calm that the surface reflects every detail of the scene or so rough that mere survival is the only thought. Its colonies of birds and seals provide some of the greatest,and most approachable, concentrations of wildlife in the world".
Today we had 3 excursions:
We went on Zodiac boats to ghost whaling village! It was totally destructed and was fascinating to warch from the sea! It has been abandaned very long time ago by the Japanese! Unfortunately the boat driver had no sense for light and photography so no great shots were possible for me! Though light and weather were great we were always at the wrong places at the wrong time! That was disappointing for me!
We landed on Stromnes, a historic whale village and also a place were Ernest Shakleton ended his crossing of South Georgia! There were many seals and a few penguins and I managed to have some great shots with the ghost village as background! Also a shot of a young seal where there even is a nice picture inside the eye of the seal! The 200-400 Canon is an amazing lens! It is unbelievable that there are at least 10 of these lenses on board, mostly owned by Chinese photographers! By the way: the lost Nikon 800 on one of the beaches was also owned by a Chinese woman! Late in the evening she found out that she lost one of her many cameras! Yes, some Chinese have not only one Nikon 810, but often they even have two Nikon D4s or two Canon 1DX. Each of them is around 5000EUR! Having 2 means they do not need to change lenses and are then quicker in taking the right frames.
I missed the Gentoo penguins, as I did not go to a waterfall, which is nearly 2km from the sea! I didnt expect them to be there! (And only found out later when I talked with a penguin researchet. She has been counting them 1 month ago!) Unbelievable that those penguins decided to breed so far inland! It is always a long walk for them to get there from the sea and there steps are smaller than those from us humans!
The weather is very warm here! Today it was mostly sunny with 17 degrees! It was already 12 degrees at 6am! My explanation for this would be falling winds from the south (Foen!). I have to make sure that I put suncream on to avoid any sunburn! ;-) Yes, there are many surprises here!
- The Afternoon landing is in Grytviken, a historic place with church, museum and cemetary. We had a 3h stay there! It was sensationel! We had wildlife (penguins and aggressive seals), landscapes with beautiful lenticular clouds and history with an ancient whaling village of Grytviken! There was also a fantastic museum and an old norwegian church! But the start was at the cemetary, where the cousin Jonathan of Ernest Shakleton gave a speech and invited us for a whisky! A great place, especially as it was sunny and warm again!
Many seals today were on the footpath and sometimes it was very tricky to pass them! Many of then were very agressive and I guess some of us were close of being biten! But there were also little ones with beautiful large eyes! And those were curios and even came closer to me! That was a nice experience. Their eyes are so amazingly cute!
There was a lecture of a native South Georgian lady and she presented the rat eradication program! They collected 15 million USD and spread 300 tons of bait already! They were very successful even in tough weather with 3 helicopters and the best pilots from New Zealand!
Please check the website www.sght.org for more infos! It is very interesting and a great project!
It was one of my greatest days of photography! I could spend weeks at this village alone and it would never get boring for me!
Today we plan to visit a huge colonie of king penguins! Hopefully the wearther will permit a landing on that beach! So far we were extremely lucky with warm, sunny days! ;-)
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