We had a busy morning for our final day on South Georgia. The plan was to visit the beach at Gold Harbour before breakfast, followed by a zodiac cruise around Cooper Bay and then head southwards towards Antarctica. But best laid plans can never fully account for the weather, and it played another significant part in how the day transpired.
The morning at Gold Harbour saw us wake up at 05:30 and be onshore by 06:00 in very snowy conditions. Towards the end of our 90 minutes on the beach, the snow began to fall even harder, with it settling and covering all over the beach. The many King Penguins did not seem to mind too much, and they were certainly the highlight of the morning. It was quite special to see them in these different conditions, even though it did cost us the views of the landscape. A Brown Skua tugging at Jonah’s trousers and trying to catch snowflakes was probably the other highlight.
The trip to Cooper Bay was not as successful, as the swell there prevented us from safely boarding the zodiacs. We still managed to observe the colonies of Macaroni Penguins and our first Chinstrap Penguins from the main ship, but it was not as intimate as it would have been nice. As compensation, we took the ship up the Drygalski Fjord, not far from the bay, to see the hanging glacier,s which were very spectacular. The birding was highlighted by excellent numbers of Snow Petrels, sometimes flying incredibly close to us on the ship. At the end of the channel, we also saw our first Weddell Seals hauled out here.
The rest of the day was spent on deck as we took the ship south we began our voyage to Antarctica. This was probably the birdiest stretch of water for the entire trip, with excellent numbers of commoner species and even good numbers of species such as Snow Petrel and Blue Petrel. An unexpected Grey-rumped Storm Petrel was one of the bonus birds we encountered, as were the four Kerguelen Petrels we saw. The first was very distant, but with each new individual, the sighting came closer, and the final two were very easy to identify, despite not being especially close. It was a delightful afternoon, with other goodies including four species of Albatross and some Macaroni Penguins in the open sea.
On the cetacean front, it was good to finally get back to the action after two blank days. There was not a huge number of encounters, and only one encounter was prolonged enough to get identifiable photos, but it was a good one; another Blue Whale!
The evening was highlighted by a rather stunning sunset, our first sighting of the sun for almost a week. The next days will be spent at sea before we reach the continent of Antarctica.
