Forrest Brown

Today started off with an extra early start, a 5 AM light breakfast and landing at Fortuna Bay. The plan was to do a 3.5 mile hike up the mountain, through a pass and down the other side into Stromness Bay where an abandoned whaling station was located. The hike followed the last little bit of the route that Ernest Shackleton took on his epic rescue journey in 1916.

The hike up the mountain to the pass was a bit of work, but coming down the other side was made easy because there was still enough snow on that side of the mountain that we were able to do a bum slide down, which was fun, but made me wish I had brought my skis.

The group starting out on our hike, the Polar Pioneer in the background

The final destination of our hike was the abandoned Stromness whaling station.

Panorama of the abandoned Stromness whaling station

Gentoo Penguin in front of Stromness

Run Forrest, Run...wait, that's not right. Run, Little Gentoo, Run!

In the afternoon the ship changed locations to Grytviken (Swedish for “The Pot Cove”), another abandoned whaling station, but now the main settlement on South Georgia for the small group of British government officers, administration and researchers that live there. Grytviken didn’t have a lot of wildlife, only a few Elephant Seals, some Far Seals and a few scattered King Penguins. What made Grytviken interesting was being able to explore the hulking, rusting machinery from the abandoned whaling station.

Rusting Machinery

Not everything is abandoned at Grytviken