I spent the morning on the movie set of “Happy Feet”. We landed at St. Andrews Bay, home to about 400,000 king penguins, numerous fur seals, and my favorite, a bunch of elephant seals. The density of animals was overwhelming visually, aurally and olfactorily. The staff deliberately chooses landing sites in areas that minimize the disturbance to the animals so our landing site was some distance away from the heart of the penguin colony. Nonetheless as we came ashore we were surrounded by wandering lines of king penguins- they really do move in lines- and seals sleeping in piles around the beach.

By the time I got to shore, one of the last ones to arrive, the staff had established our beachhead. Each landing involved bringing ashore the medical kit, a couple of large bags to hold the life preservers we wear on the zodiacs and a stack of walking poles that are available for use. In addition, people who don’t want to carry their dry bags leave them in a pile adjacent to the other items. As I strolled through the surf and up to the beach to drop off my life vest I could see my fellow shipmates in the distance making a beeline for the penguin colony, carefully following the route marked by orange poles established by the staff to keep our interference with the animals to a minimum. As I was taking off my life vest to put away for storage I looked down and noticed a baby elephant seal, perhaps four feet long, wiggling around in the dry bags sniffing through our stuff.

The baby elephant seal happily laying across someone’s back back. It was an extremely curious seal!

Elephant seals, which have become my favorite animal, like to lie around in piles on top of each other. This one was by itself with no fellow seals to pile with and instead kept trying to cuddle with the backpacks, medical equipment and dry bags. The staff would move the items out of the way and the seal would wiggle and flop in pursuit. Watching an elephant seal, of any size, moving around on land is entertainment in and of itself. They literally flop, heaving their body forward, picking up their back end making moving forward progress inch by slow inch. It must be incredibly exhausting for them to move such bulk- adults males can weigh as much as four tons- because they move for a little bit, then stop and rest, before setting forth again. An elephant seal should never be able to sneak up on anyone on land! But this little guy, who was quite small, was moving around relatively rapidly and no sooner would the staff move the stuff then he would go and investigate again. He was so adorable that I stayed there for over 30 minutes just watching him express his curiosity.

Just in case there is any doubt how cute this guy was, here is a close up.

Finally, though, I decided I probably ought to make the kilometer or so trek to take a look at the king penguin colony, supposedly consisting of about 400,000 birds Picking up a pole, something that we were recommended to carry in case we had to ward off an aggressive fur seal, I set out. It is really hard to describe the scale of the landscape. The bay and beach area, having been carved from a glacier, stretched for miles and all I could see were small red dots in the distance where everyone was standing at the edge of the colony. Along the way I passed more stacks of elephant seals, either sleeping or waking up briefly to snarl at each other before falling back into slumber. These animals are constantly making noise, snorting, snarling, chuffing, and honking, so you always know they are around (if the smell alone is not sufficient to announce their presence!). It was a pleasant walk, at one point requiring me to ford a stream, populated by king penguins, that was winding its way across the plain to the ocean. Dotted across the landscape also were many clumps of fur seals, the alpha males jealously guarding the females. It was because of these guys, who were very unhappy if anyone ventured what they thought was too close, that we were carrying the walking stick as a precaution.

A closer shot of part of the penguin colony- birds were everywhere.

The chicks looked hilarious in their fuzzy brown coats. It amazed me that they could move at all.

I climbed a small hill to join the large crowd at the top and looked down to see a veritable carpet of penguins stretching off to the distant horizon, flashes of white, black, orange, and brown, as far as the eye could see. The brown color was due to the plethora of king penguin chicks who had not yet passed through adolescence and consequently moulted. They had a fuzzy brown set of feathers that made them look like a small Goodyear blimp walking on two feet. Most of them were gathered together in one area but occasionally I would spot a chick following its parent around. It was hilarious to watch the chicks. They looked so large and fluffy that it did not seem reasonable that they could move at all. Every now and then one would start flapping its wings and run around in a circle for a while, for no apparent reason. Even more amusing were those chicks who had started to moult but were not yet finished. It was possible to see glimpses of the sleek white and black tuxedo resplendent on the adults through the oddly placed tuft of brown feathers still remaining. Many had the look of penguin punk rockers.

It was no surprise that the colony was noisy. With so many birds, it was inevitable that at any one time numerous adults were singing out. The chicks were making constant peeping noises in return. I can only assume that the adults returning from feeding were trying to find their children. The penguins were amazing, as I sat and watched the activity trying to comprehend such a massive quantity of birds, all constantly in motion. But my heart remained with the elephant seals so I did not stay too long but instead after about 15 minutes made the trek back to the landing site to check on the young curious seal that was cuddling up to our things.
It was nice to be off the boat and be able to exercise my legs so I enjoyed the walk, stopping to look at baby fur seals or piles of adult elephant seals on my way.

The juvenile (the adults can be twice as big) expressing his displeasure about backpacks getting taken away from him. Meanwhile the baby seals sleep on contentedly.

Back at the landing site I was amused to find that there were now three small elephant seals sleeping in various states of repose on top of our stuff. As I watched one woke up and moved off when the dry bag it was sleeping against got claimed by someone. Off to the right, however, I saw a somewhat larger seal, a juvenile that was probably ten feet long, slowly (since that is the only way they can move) making his way over to our piles of stuff. I stood there and simply watched, waiting to see if anyone noticed we were about to have bigger company. It got all the way to the medical equipment before the staff noticed and moved the cases, much to the disgruntlement of the seal, who decided we were not worth the trouble and moved off, but not without voicing his displeasure! The other two small seals slept peacefully until we departed. I made sure I was one of the last in the boats so I could watch them until the last minute—it was, literally, hours of entertainment for me.

The landscape was always breathtaking, whether the sun was out or not.

In the afternoon we stopped at Grytviken, an old whaling station, now preserved as a museum. There are several abandon whaling stations along the coast of South Georgia, but many are in ruins and not safe to visit, either because they are not structurally sound or because of the asbestos materials used in their construction. Extensive remediation had taken place at Grytviken to make it hospitable for visitors. In addition, Grytviken is the burial site of Ernest Shackleton the great Antarctic explorer. It was to Grytviken he and four others set out in a small boat from Elephant Island, leaving the bulk of his crew behind, to find rescue after they had been trapped in the ice for months and months. It is an incredible tale of heroism and endurance.

Shackleton’s grave.

It is customary to share a whiskey toast at Shackelton’s grave, pouring the last few drops on the Earth in his honor. That tradition exercised we spent the next few hours learning about the history of the town and life in a whaling station. Scattered around the beach and along the coastline were several wrecked ships and of course, a population of the South Georgia standards- penguins, fur seals and elephant seals. It was a mellow afternoon and a change of pace from watching wildlife. I sat on one of the stone walls of the village and simply absorbed the immensity of the landscape surrounding me. I also tried to imagine what winter in such a remote place would be like. Here we were at the height of summer and the temperature was barely above freezing- winters would be brutal! I returned to the ship, recognizing I am a woman built for the more temperate latitudes!

Grytviken, an old whaling village now preserved as a museum. There are a handful of people that live here the whole year round.