Travel to all seven continents with Leglessbird!

Tuesday 18 May 2010

Fortuna Bay, South Georgia, Antarctica, 23 Jan 2008



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20080123 Wednesday Day 8 Still at South Georgia
3 degree in the morning. Our original plan was to make one landing in the morning but the sea and wind conditions were not favourable and we had to wait to see the weather condition would become friendlier at a later time. It did get better and we made a landing at Fortuna Bay and the weather was beautiful (much better than the day before), so the cameras were happily working in dry conditions and we took some video shots too. In summary, king penguins and fur seals were everywhere on this bay and we also saw elephant seals, and reindeer at a far distance. Often the fur seals are very curious and would come up and inspect us. Now because we were late on our schedule which did not leave enough time to do the final 5km of Shackleton trail from Fortuna Bay to Stromness whaling station, it was supposed to be one of the highlights of this trip, this showed we were in a region where we were very much at the mercy of nature.

After an early dinner, we were able to go onshore again, this time landing at Stromness Bay whaling station where Shackleton found safety after his 2-year failed journey to cross the South Pole during 1914-1916. The whaling station had ceased operation since the late 1960s and had not been made safe for tourist to visit. By the time we land, it was already getting dark, we made a short walk to see the waterfall where Shackleton climbed down, we had to be extra careful not to step on the baby fur seals which looked exactly like the bumpy mud in darkness.

We met a couple from US who had publised a book with photos taken from 50 countries!

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