Sailing to South Georgia

Today we are on board the MV Ortelius, sailing from the Falkland Islands to South Georgia. The seas were pretty calm overnight and now we have 3-4 foot swells. The boat rocks side to side much more so than up and down. I think we prefer this. It's not terribly intrusive, though you are cautioned to always have a "hand on the ship" so as not to fall over when walking. There are occasionally larger swells but overall, the Cheesemans have said this is the most stable ship of its type they've ever been on.

We attended two lectures this morning - one on the natural history and birds of South Georgia, with some information about where we're going for the next 6 days. It was really a slide show of photographs that the speaker had taken - and I mean that in a good way. The lectures are informative and extremely interesting because they typically have some fantastic pictures of the birds and mammals that we have or are going to see. After the first talk, we had a lecture about Shackleton's famous "Endurance" expedition to Antarctica - a small group eventually made it to South Georgia and had to hike across the island to be rescued. It was a 35 mile hike, and we may have the opportunity to do part of it - maybe 2 miles or so. That will be interesting. The lecture started out with a quote along the lines of "...when it looks like all is lost and the situation is completely hopeless, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton."

After the morning lectures, we had to do our "biosecurity" measures. The government of South Georgia takes very seriously the notion of keeping out non-endemic species. There is a rat problem currently on the island, from rats that were introduced by whalers / sealers 100 years ago or so. They are concerned about the introduction of seeds, vegetation, etc. so we spent half an hour vacuuming out our landing gear - jackets, boots, gloves, backpacks, etc. But it's important work so we took the time to do it (plus, you can't go onto shore unless you do).

This afternoon, we napped a bit and then heard a talk on birds of South Georgia Island (again, lots of photos) and then a talk about plate tectonics. We ran out of time on that one before dinner, which they try to keep to a schedule because it is difficult enough for the staff to feed 100 people as it is.

Several people have asked about the food and beds on board. The beds are quite firm but relatively comfortable. We've been pretty tired most nights so it's not a problem. However, the ship is fairly warm, so we've had our cabin window open at least partway most of the time. As for the meals, breakfast has been cereal, toast, fruit and usually some egg dish. Lunch is a soup for an appetizer then a buffet of a variety of things - nothing terribly special, along with dessert. Dinner is an appetizer, entree and dessert. The entree is always a choice of meat, fish, and something purely vegetarian. There's been a variety and it's been pretty good, though with more sauces and thus heavier than we typically eat at home. And it's tough to pass up dessert every night!

We finally had some time this afternoon to go through the first few days of photos. Attached are four. One shows a rockhopper penguin and its chick in a "standoff" with two other rockhoppers. One shows the rockhopper penguin "highway" which we saw the first day when the penguins climb down a fairly steep and very rocky gully to get in and out of the ocean. We hiked it too! One photo shows "penguins on the beach" from our stop on the second day in the Falklands. The poses were quite amusing - this is a magellanic penguin squawking and raising its flippers at a gentoo penguin. Finally, Greg got an amazing shot from "Albatross City" yesterday. The albatross in front is about to run into the wind to take off into flight. There is a mountain in the background, which we climbed (okay, a large hill), with the ocean in the back and our boat in the background. Note that the "beach" isn't really that at all. Instead, this is the massive colony of albatross breeding and nesting here. The green above the nesting grounds is tussock grass, which are usually about 6 feet tall and incredibly dense to hike through. But it's a great place to hang out and watch the albatross swoop down close to your head as they come in for a landing in the nesting colony. We have another full day at sea tomorrow and a half day or so after that, with our first landing in South Georgia expected Saturday afternoon. We are following a storm so they expect the waters to become a bit calmer which we are certainly hoping for as well.