Fur Seals Attack!

When we started planning for this trip, roughly 2/3 of the people we told about it thought we were nuts. We're okay with that! We like to do things that are off the beaten path and outside our comfort zone. Sometimes we may get a bit too far outside our comfort zone though, and today was a bit of that.

We started at a very early 4:30am – so early, there wasn't even a wake-up call, so it's a good thing we both travel with our phones which have alarm clocks. The plan was to have a cold breakfast and then begin taking our zodiacs at 5:30am to our first landing at Salisbury Plains. Unfortunately, the weather worked against us today, starting with a low ceiling and thus our first landing was delayed until 7:00 or so. But we did make a landing, which wasn't difficult until we hit the beach. Remember the "frolicking fur seals" we talked about yesterday? Well, they should be named the "Devil Seal" in the same way that the Striated Caracara is named the "Devil's Bird." They are aggressive, they attack repeatedly, and they've already bitten 3 people during this Antarctic season. Fortunately, none on our expedition, at least that we've heard of, but they are definitely a nuisance to watch out for. We landed and immediately picked up a stick, plus used one tripod as another stick to keep them away. When they charge (mouth open and teeth bared), you are supposed to point the stick at them to get them to stop. I'm not sure they've all ready the same handbook however... we had one charge several times and we had to be pretty firm to get him to turn away.

The other challenge for the morning's landing was that it was raining. Not the light little mist we've seen a bit of so far on the trip, but a steady, fairly firm rain that drenched everything. Fortunately our rain gear worked pretty well with the exception of our gloves. I don't think there's a person onboard who went ashore and had dry gloves at the end of the morning. Let's just say that the "hair dryers" on board have been in use all afternoon and not for drying hair! But despite the weather, we took a few photos on shore before finally putting away Lori's cameraa. Then we joined a hike to the top of the hill at the landing site to get a view of the penguin landscape. Salisbury Plains is a quite famous shot where, if you hike the hill that we did, you can shoot down over a sea of King penguins. They are of different colors – some are all brown fuzzy feathers while others are mostly black and white but going through their annual molt, which is when the old feathers are forced out by new ones. It takes about 3-4 weeks and looks very uncomfortable. We were tempted to go and pluck out the old feathers just to get the process over with! While they are molting, the penguins can't go into the ocean, so they generally stand in streams or creeks so they have access to water to drink while their feathers fall out and litter the stream. And we got to walk through it (it's not as pleasant as it sounds).

Anyway, the view from the top of the hill is pretty incredible. There are tussock grasses in front and behind the penguins, then a sea of penguins of various colors, and some are near and some are far away. I believe there are 80,000 breeding pairs in the colony we saw today. That's why we call it a penguin landscape. You can take a photo and have nothing but penguins in it, yet they are different enough and arrange themselves differently that it still makes an interesting shot.

Unfortunately, Greg's camera died while we were on top of the hill, so we took only a few shots before putting away Lori's camera as well (we didn't want to push it and wind up with two non-functioning cameras, and we think his camera might be back to life – several others had similar problems with all the rain). Then we had to leave that site because we were freezing. With the rain pouring down, our gloves were soaked through – we could make a fist and see the water dripping out – and it was too cold to just sit there in the rain. So we hiked back down the hill to get to the edge of the colony (at the level of the penguins) and then return to the landing site. Every time we land, I think "What are we going to do for the next 3 or 4 hours out here?" Yet we always seem to be one of the last groups in the zodiac, and today was no exception. We walked around at sea level and then Greg discovered that a King penguin was following us. So we turned and watched him (her?) for a while – Greg got some video with his GoPro camera that we'll probably post when we get home. Then we had to walk through a chess board filled with aggressive fur seals and penguin groups to get back to the landing site to return to the ship for lunch and the afternoon landing. It was a hairy walk and we encountered several unpleasant seals.

We took our zodiac back to ship and had lunch – though the main course was seafood paella so of course I couldn't eat that! Then we were to be among the first group of 50 to go ashore to Prion Island. This is a place with 30 pairs of breeding albatross and they say it is an amazing site. So of course we were close to the front of the line when our group was called. The first two zodiacs with passengers went out, and then they determined that the ship's anchor wasn't holding so they had to reposition the ship. The result was that we were much closer to the landing site, which was a very good thing as the wind was blowing around 40 knots (close to 40 mph). This results in lots of sea spray in the zodiacs. Several people had the equivalent of several buckets of water dumped over their heads on the way to shore. The waves were going strong, and we were bouncing all over the place...it was the most "exciting" ride so far (though I could do with a bit more boredom in my zodiac rides, thanks!)

Anyway, we got to the island which had even more fur seals – moms, dads, and pups. The babies are still cute, especially the really little ones, but even they are aggressive. The expedition staff says they're just born ornery and we believe it. We picked up a stick to keep them at by and proceeded with our group up a wooden boardwalk up the hill which has been built to get people up to view the nesting sites. There were several wandering albatross on nests right next to the boardwalk so that was cool. And at the top, there were about a dozen maybe 50 yards away and in clear sight. Of course, it was pretty windy up there as well, and because of the limited number of people allowed at any one time, we had only about 15 minutes at the top. However, even more spectacular than the albatross in our opinion was the view of the bay where the ship was anchored and on the other side of the island. We were able to see two glaciers, snow-capped mountains, beautiful blue waters (multiple colors of blue), and pretty grasses. It's just a gorgeous landscape – one of the nicest we've seen so far.

I'd say we could post some photos tonight but Greg's asleep! Our wake-up call isn't until 6:30am tomorrow, and we have already anchored in our new destination – Fortuna Bay on the northeast side of South Georgia Island. We have 5 more full days of landings here – and lots more fur seals we are told. But tomorrow, in addition to seeing more birds and penguins, we are going on a 3.3 mile walk that is the last portion of the Shackleton hike from when he navigated from Elephant Island to Stromness Harbord to save his crew back in the 1900's. I'm told our hike will be easier than theirs was...