Forrest Brown

After two and half days at sea the Polar Pioneer has reached South Georgia. South Georgia is a remote collection of sub-antarctic islands made up of the main South Georgia Island surrounded by many smaller islands that are located about 1335 miles East of South America. The islands are uninhabited except for a small group of British government officers, administration and researchers.

What makes the South Georgia Islands interesting is the rugged landscapes, huge glaciers and large amounts of bird and marine wildlife.

Our first stop at South Georgia was Elsehul (Norwegian for Else Cove). After breakfast we boarded the Zodiacs for several hours of cruising around the cove take photos of the impressive landscapes and wildlife.

South Georgia Island

Best Buds

Fur Seal

This guy had been fighting with another Fur Seal

We returned to the Polar Pioneer for lunch and so that the ship could move to our second location for the day, Right Whale Bay. At this location we went ashore at Binder Beach and we able to spend several hours photographing a large colony of King Penguins along with Elephant Seals and Fur Seals.

Thousands of King Penguins at Binder Beach in Right Whale Bay

Juvenile King Penguin looking for his lunch.

Regal King Penguin

As we were ashore the weather started to turn for the worse with howling winds and snow, so as amazing as it was, it was good to return to the warmth of the ship at the end of the day.

Today and tomorrow are at sea as the Polar Pioneer heads for South Georgia Island. So far the seas have been fairly calm and I think most people are getting used to the rocking and rolling of the ship.

Many of the photographers spend time out on the deck trying to shoot the sea birds. Getting good photos of the birds in flight can be tough under normal conditions, having the ship rocking and rolling under you adds another level of difficulty.

Black-Browed Albatross

Southern Giant-Petrel

It’s Canada Day!

Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t very good on the glacier for the last day of camp, it was raining and snowing with bad visibility. And even worse then weather was that my legs had turned into wet noodles, all of the skiing and mountain biking had finally caught up to me. So I skied for a little while, but decided that it was better to quit early before I hurt myself.

Jeff hitting the air-bag

To get to the glacier at the top of the mountain where the ski camp terrain park is located was a bit work each day. We would have to take one chairlift, then walk about 100 feet to another chairlift. At the top of that chairlift we would get on a but that would drive us around the mountain to where we would get on a third chair lift to the top of the mountain. The whole process took about 45 minutes. But one of the cool things about riding the lower chairlifts was that we would almost always see bears and sometimes deer.