Around South America in 80 Days

February 9, 2019

Grytviken, South Georgia

Another amazing day! But, let’s start with a little history. The area is believed to have been first sighted in 1675 but nobody took much interest until after Captain Cook visited in 1775, claimed it for Great Britain, and wrote about the abundance of seals. A few years later sealers started coming and almost wiped out the fur seal population by the mid 1800s. In 1904 the first land-based whaling station was establish at Grytviken by Carl Larson. Within the next few years, six more whaling stations would be established on South Georgia and at one time there were over 2000 working on the island. All the stations were shut down by the mid-1960s.

Grytviken is also associated with the English Antarctic explorer, Ernest Shackleton. As I mentioned before, his ship Endurance was lost in the ice and eventually he and his men sailed over 800 miles from Elephant Island to South Georgia. On a later expedition he died on the island and is buried in the whalers’ cemetery in Grytviken.

Just like the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the other South Sandwich Islands are claimed by Argentina although they are still part of the British Overseas Territories.

OK, lesson over and now for my day.

At 9:00 a couple of people from the Grytviken post office came on board with stamps, postcards, and some souvenirs. From what I could see, they did a brisk business all day.

Three of the scientists who work on South Georgia gave a talk at 10:00. They discussed some of the programs that are carried out on the island dealing with fish, seals, and penguins. They also talked a little about what life is like on the island with only a couple of dozen people (none of them permanent residents). They mentioned that about 70 ships come to the island each summer but we were the largest this season (most are expedition ships that carry about 100 people). Today was one of the nicest days they have had this season - the sky was a beautiful blue with few clouds and a temperature approaching 50F. They said they only have about five days a summer like this.

When the talk was over I got a quick bite to eat in the Lido because I had to be in the Ocean Bar at 12:00 for my 12:20 departure (remember only so many people could go ashore at a time and we had a two-hour time limit ashore). We were called early at 12:05 and actually were onshore by 12:20. Once again the ship had everything planned very well.

I started out for the cemetery first and had not gone more than a few feet before I saw the first seal just sitting in the grass. As I walked to the cemetery over a very rough path and even having to go through water a couple of times, I came upon hundreds of fur seals and some of the much larger elephant seals. There was also a group of king penguins. A number of them were moulting and for about three weeks as there new feathers grow, are unable to go to sea to feed and rely on using their fat supplies. The animals had the right-away so we had to stop if they wanted to cross the path.

When I arrived at the cemetery I saw Shackleton’s grave as well as his “right hand man”, Frank Wild, who had been on expeditions with Shackleton and took over for him when Shackleton died.

I then headed to the church. It was pre-built in Norway and shipped to Grytviken where it was put together by the whalers and consecrated on Christmas Day 1913. It was Church of Norway until handed over in 2013 and is now Anglican. In one of the back rooms is the library of the whaling station.

My last stop was the museum which was very interesting with all kinds of artifacts of the whaling days as well as a number of stuffed animals of the area.

My two hours were almost up so I made my way back to the tender.

At 4 pm we had afternoon trivia. We had 18 out of 23 and tied a number of teams but lost the tiebreaker.

1) In what city was Titanic built?

2) Which actress has won the most Oscars?

3) What is the name of the evil lion in The Lion King?

4) Which mammal has the longest gestation period?

5) How many islands in the Philippines? (tie-breaker)

After trivia I worked on my photos. I took 150 today.

Evening trivia was once again in the Showroom where the lighting is horrible. We had 18 out of 18 and tied a number of groups but, as usual, lost the tiebreaker.

1) True or false – dolphins are mammals?

2) What company supplied the Russian court with vodka from 1886-1917?

3) What is the term for plants that live for more than two years?

4) Topaz is the birthstone for what month?

5) What country has the longest coastline in the world?

We had an interesting menu and I will include a photo of it tomorrow. I had a salad, ham, and a pavlova.

I did not go to the show.

I will apologize in advance about the number of pictures. Since I have to do videos on my iPad, I will add those tomorrow.

From my deck