Date: 6th Jan, 2011
The plan for South Georgia was to move from north eastern part of the island towards the south along the coast. After two awesome landings we continued down the island for the second day. Today the plan was to wake up at 5.30am and get ready to board the zodiacs at 6am for a 3.5hr hike from Fortuna Bay to Stromness bay. This is part of the walk that Shackleton crossed along with 2 other men from his crew after a strenuous journey from Elephant island to S. Georgia in search of rescue. We heard about the hike plans during dinner the previous night and immediately looked at each other and our eyes glowed, we said: yes, we are in!
It was a great hike with amazing view of the mountains and the bay. The winds were blowing really hard and we got a taste for the Catabatic winds which is probably the strongest winds we have ever faced. Trinity was almost blown away. One of our guides Solan read some of the inspiring excerpts from the Shackleton's book along the hike. It was approximately a 5.5mile hike and we took about 3hrs before catching a glimpse of the abandoned Stromness bay whaling station from atop. During the last stretch of the hike we did come across a nice waterfall and a plain grassland with reindeers that were descendants of those introduced by Norwegian whaler Larsen in 1911.
We had another hike planned for the afternoon. After a hurried up lunch we hit the shores again for a hike starting out from Myviken. We can probably say that this is one of the very few scenic walks we have ever did. We were greeted by fur seals along the lake during the initial part of the hike. The weather was great with temperatures in mid 10s. It was time for a group shot when we came across a beautiful waterfall before starting a steep ascent that culminated with a gorgeous view of Mount Paget along with its sister mountains. I believe this is the tallest mountain under the British control and it was completely covered with snow. It reminded me of the Himalayan range in Nepal and as the tradition goes I did get some nice panoramic shots of these mountains. The wind was not too strong unlike the Shackleton walk that we took earlier in the day. It was a short 3mi hike and we took our own sweet time to slowly descend down to Grytviken which is the capital town of S. Georgia.
Grytviken was a whaling station back in early 1900s. It has a church built by the Norwegian whalers. Currently about 4 people stay in this little town with 1 managing the post office, 1 taking care of the museum and 2 working in the gift shop for tourists. They are present here only during the 4 summer months when the tourist ships visit them. After a quick stop at the church we headed to the post office and sent some cards to our loved ones. Being a prior philately enthusiast, I had to hoard up some stamps and first day covers related to Antarctica wildlife and history. The gift shop is located inside the museum and here you can find all the commonly found souvenir items. The staff were very friendly and they do accept dollars, euros, sterling pounds and major credit cards.
All the ships visiting South Georgia has to make a pit stop at Grytviken to clear customs and obtain necessary paper work to visit the rest of the island. Every season Grytviken receives on the order of 16-17 ships and each of them have about 100 passengers on an average. After his epic journey in 1916, Shackleton returned to South Georgia aboard "Quest" where he had a tragic heart attack. His grave is one of the frequently visited spots in the town. It is a tradition to gather around his grave and raise rum shots to salute this great explorer, and so we did at 5:45pm, at the end of our visit.
King Edward point is located just across the bay from Grytviken and it hosts about 4-5 British scientists who are studying the wildlife in the region. In the evening, we hosted a few scientists in the ship to give talks about their work in the region. Apparently there is a massive effort to get rid of the rats which feed on bird chicks. We learned a little bit about the fishery control and penguin/seal research with a brief introduction to the-life-of-a-researcher-in-south-georgia. This was followed by an american style BBQ on the deck of the ship. The chef team did a great job organizing the BBQ in fairly windy conditions. The hot dogs and hamburgers were great and even Trinity seem to have missed these american delicacies after staying away from home for about 10 days now. We enjoyed the warm Glu wine watching the sun set behind the mountains surrounding Grytviken. It was great to catch up on some movie sipping over cognac/honey in our cozy cabin.
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