In Shackleton's Footsteps (updated with pix and video)

From Mindy, dated 4 January:

Boy what a day!  We started off sailing in Hercules Bay trying to get another chance at seeing macaroni penguin.  The seas were too rough to do safe zodiac loading, so we moved on to Fortuna Bay.  When we had our wake-up call, we were already in Fortuna Bay and the air temp was 1 degree C, while water was at 2.5 C.  Barometer was at 993, and everything was very calm in the bay (no measurable wind).

We landed at Fortuna Bay near more fur seals.  A new friend I've made on the ship, Natalie, is deathly afraid oaf the fur seals (rightly so, they are scary), and it has been great fun for our whole group to chuckle at her uneasiness.  Natalie knits, and she actually started knitting a little grey fur seal with toothpick tips for teeth!  It is so cute, and she is going to donate it to our silent auction fund raiser later in the cruise (I'll talk about the auction later, stay tuned!).  Anyway, Natalie did not enjoy this landing...

Angry Fur Seal (click to enlarge)

Skua & Fur Seal Fight
(click to enlarge)

The fur seals were quite aggressive and they were EVERYWHERE at our landing site.  I even had a close encounter with one of them... He charged me and wouldn't leave me alone (at one point he was bearing his teeth in a standoff with about 3 feet between us).  I didn't get bit, but I was shaking in my boots while I stood my ground (if I would have ran or turned my back he would have bit me).  (File under "things a husband loves to read" - Ed.)

Another neat treat at this landing were the reindeer.  That's right, reindeer!  They were introduced by the whalers in 1918 and 1925 for hunting, and the group of 7 from 1925 has now grown to about 1000 reindeer.  This will be the last year for reindeer here on South Georgia Island.. In an attempt to eradicate the introduced species from the island, the reindeer will be culled completely (along with the rat eradication project).  The reindeer are pretty, but they truly don't belong in this ecosystem (wrong pole - Ed.).  Once the rats and reindeer are gone, the birds will find better sanctuary on South Georgia Island.

Molting baby penguin
(click to enlarge)

Skua in flight (click to enlarge)

We all walked over to the foot of Konig Glacier to see king penguin colonies.  The penguins stretched out on the flat terrain for as far as they eye could see. We waited to try to catch an egg exchange (where one parent is sitting on the egg and swaps the egg out with another parent to get food), but we never caught an egg exchange in action.  Many of the penguin were losing a layer of brown "down" in a process called molting (a penguin isn't "waterproof" if any of that down is left on its body) (no word on whether they get yelled at for leaving clothes on the floor - Ed.).

Z folds at Stromness
(click to enlarge)

Stromness whaling station
(click to enlarge)

Several of our group ate lunch on the shore (yummy peanut butter and jelly sandwich), and then caught a zodiac over to the other side of the bay to start Shackleton's hike.  This hike was done by Shackleton, Crean, and Worsley while they desperately searched for rescue in 1916 after Shackleton's ship (HMS Endurance) sank.  Shackleton left 20-some men on Elephant Island, sailed in a lifeboat to South Georgia Island with 5 other sailors, and had to leave 3 on the beach of South Georgia because they were too weak to make the journey.  While hiking on a ridge, Shackleton recognized some familiar rocks (he described as a z-shape, and now we know they are tight folds in sedimentary rocks), and figured out where they were. While resting in a snow gully on the west side of Fortuna Bay, they heard the whistle blow at the whaling station (it was the first manmade sound they had heard in 18 months).  They knew they were close and made a beeline for Stromness Harbour.  Once at the whaling station they knocked on the door of the foreman, and he helped them out.  It was 10 months or so before the seas permitted Shackleton to get back out to rescue his men from Elephant Island.  Miraculously, none of them died and all were rescued!

Molting morraine (click to enlarge)

Scree on the hike (click to enlarge)

While we were on the Shackleton hike, we saw conglomerates, shale, steep scree surfaces (scree is jagged loose rocks on a steep slope where you can easily slide down), and plenty of thrust faults.  My structural geology professor from CSUH (Luther Strayer) would be excited by all this folding. We hiked up along a glacial morraine, which Richard Alley said was a "molting morraine" because the tufts of grass looked like the the penguins with patches of down/fur.  We saw a small lake - Crean Lake - and kept walking along a saddle.

The hike was impressive, even though  5.5 km is not much of Shackleton's famous hike. We got to slide down a portion of the ending where the snow is better that the rock for navigating downward.  At the end we came out in another bay (the ship cruised around behind us). This bay was a whaling port at one time, the Stromness.

Fur Seal smooch (click to enlarge)

Macaroni penguins
(click to enlarge)

Now the buildings are fenced off because of dangerous flying debris and also asbestos on the structures.  There were more fur seals at the beach, and several macaroni penguins.

D&JR (click to enlarge)

One last thought for today... I am thinking especially of Janet and Dan who are feverishly getting ready for their wedding tomorrow  (5 Jan).  I'm wishing I could be there, and please know that I carry them with me all day.  I know the wedding will be perfect for you two!

So, tomorrow it is off to another harbor, Godthul (Norwegian for "good harbor").