Date: 8th Jan, 2011
Today is the last day in South Georgia and Lynn decided to pack it up with lots of action. The ship was heading north passing some of the spots we had already visited during the past 3 days. The wake up call was at 5.30am and we were promptly at the gang way boarding the zodiac at 6am. The plan was to go on a zodiac cruise around prince olive harbor and elephant cove. It was a cloudy morning with some rough winds churning the ocean. We got quite wet on the zodiacs and I manage to get some shots along the way. Prince olav harbor has the ruins of a whaling station with huge tanks that were used to store the whale oil. It also has a ship wreck that is more than 100yrs old. The shore was full of fur seals and it was a great idea not to land there. The mountains were covered with fog but we could still see the horizontal/vertical strips of sediments that could be a great playground for archaeologists. We learned from our guide that the vegetation in s. georgia is similar to that of south american continent and very unlike africa. This lead to the speculation that s. georgia was probably a part of s. america and not africa before the gondwana land split apart. The elephant cove is quite secluded with decent bird life and shallow waters.
Back on the ship we had a fairly late breakfast while we waited for our next landing at right whale bay which is supposed to be the place where the right whales hung out before the whaling began. Due to strong winds and bad weather, we could not land at this site and decided to head south again towards Prion island. Apparently Prion island is a paradise for albatross and other air borne birds. The south georgian government has some rules to let us land on this island only on specific days/times. Fortunately, today was one of those days and Lynn was trying to work around our itineraries in the past 3-4 days to make this landing possible. Probably this explains why we started heading south earlier and then came back up north keeping in mind that our next major destination Antarctica is located further south.
Visiting Prion island requires following some extra rules because it supports a delicate vegetation that can easily be disrupted by human intervention. This is one of the few islands that has no rats and birds like pipits can survive here. Only 50 people are allowed on this island at any time. We were put in groups 10 and shuttled off to the island. The weather was cloudy with strong winds. The ocean was very rough and it was a quite a challenge to maneuver the zodiac. There is a nice board walk to reach the top of the island where the albatross nests are located. As always we were greeted by fur seals on both sides of the board walk. We reached the top and could easily spot many albatross es and soots. There was one big male albatross sitting on its egg right across the board walk. We got some great shots in spite of the rain which was trying hard to spoil our camera gear. After about 15-20 min, we had to leave making room for the next group. This was our last landing in south georgia and we had to sadly bid goodbye to this wildlife paradise of the south. We were informed later that the last 14+ people could not make it to the island because of changing wind conditions that apparently picked up during the later part of the day.
Without wasting much time, the ship sailed crossing south georgia's northern tip. There was an announcement that we need to secure our things in the cabin before we hit the open waters that night. The sea got rougher with terribly long waves. We could feel the difference and it was barely possible to walk without having one hand on the rails. For tonight, everybody was invited to attend a "hat" party at the bar to raise a toast for south georgia.
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