January 6, 2023June 26, 2023

Gold Harbour, South Georgia

This post is part of our epic adventure to the Falklands, South Georgia, and Antarctica. In case you don’t want to read this sequentially, or you are looking for a specific part of the trip, here are some shortcuts:

Gold Harbour, South Georgia – January 6th

54.6265° S, 35.9421° W

3 Celsius / 37 Fahrenheit – Sunny

The wind had calmed and we woke to gorgeous blue skies. Our day began with a remarkable landing at Gold Harbour. It was a mesmerising panorama of king penguins stretching as far as the eye could see. THIS was why I came to South Georgia.

There were brown fluffy chicks, awkward adolescents, and regal adults.

I don’t think this little one was seaworthy yet.

Waddling amongst the king penguins was an occasional gentoo and a lone chinstrap penguin.

The shore was lined with massive formidable elephant seals. There’s a tipping point with elephant seals – at some point they go from cute seals to drooling beasts with blood red eyes and white crusty noses.

There were also playful young fur seals, called weaners.

Ben, a member of our Expedition Team, kindly offered to lead us on a walk along the beach. The crashing waves combined with the abundance of wildlife was almost sensory overload. Despite our best efforts to stay dry, we were smashed by a rogue wave and when the water receded a King penguin was trapped between Andy’s legs.

We were grinning ear to ear – this was the perfect landing.

Our waterproof pants and muckboots protected us the best they could, but we were in waist-deep water so eventually ended up soaked through. We tried to dry our clothes on the bathroom floor but eventually sent them to the laundry service for a quick spin through the dryer.