Today was a reverse of Monday on South Georgia Island, sunny in the morning and winter in the afternoon. It was early in the season for so much glacial ice in Hercules Bay but it made for nice kayaking and Zodiac cruising. We took advantage of the wonderful sunshine and stayed aboard watching the seals on the drifting ice flows and the soaring birds.
By the time the kayaks were recovered the wind had picked up and clouds rolled in. We weighed anchor and slowly cruised towards West Cumberland Bay and the nearly deserted whaling station at Grytziken. Katie of the Scottish lilt worked at the museum here last year and, though she tried to make whaling sound like a romantic adventure, I still find it barbaric.
Shakleton's Gravesite, Grytziken, S. Georgia
Once on shore we had a memorial ceremony, complete with whisky toasts, at the cemetery where Ernst Shakleton and his mate, Frank Wild, are buried. While the majority of the passengers followed Katie on a tour of Grytziken, fifteen of us trooped after Jacques on a five-mile slog to see nesting white-mantled sooty albatross. It was snowing heavily by the time we reached the cliffs and visibility was almost zero, but we did see two birds on their nests. Hiking uphill in Wellies isn’t much fun but the boots were needed in the soggy moss where the upper layer of permafrost had melted.
When we returned to the whalebone littered beach we were greeted by a pair of gentoo penguins and scores of farting fur seals. Much of the whale processing plant is still standing and hulks of whaling ships lie rusting on the shore. The whole scene reminded me of Auschwitz, another sign that man isn’t truly civilized. More than 54,000 whales were processed here in the first half of the 20th Century so European women could have narrow waists and people could read their Bibles by whale-oil lamps.
