Towards South Georgia

After leaving the Falklands we have spent the last 2 days at sea. The first was pleasant and calm and we enjoyed watching prions, petrels and albatross, even the great wandering albatross following the ship. It was a quiet day so the girls got on with some work and then decided to make Christmas decorations for the ship from bits and pieces lying around. We awoke to a much wilder sea on Saturday and most people lay low as the wind howled and the ship lurched about on the ocean. However there was great excitement when we saw our first iceberg, a huge looming blue/white mass, beautifully sculpted by the wind and weather. They are all given names in alphabetical order so we spotted more in the course of the afternoon and there were cries of delight when iceberg Judith was identified. There was a navigation challenge as we wove our way through Shag Rocks, two precipitous lumps of rock rising straight out of the sea and inhabited by colonies of shags, but they were also surrounded by three icebergs. It was interesting to see how you could tell their exact position from the radar screen. We all went to a great lecture on Shackleton in preparation for our landing at South Georgia, then lay low as the ship tossed about. It was too rough to make our first landing on south Georgia so we went straight to Grytviken and at 8.30am. it was calm, blue sky and sunshine and we have just had the most perfect and wondrous day. We spent the morning at Grytviken and were greeted by king penguins and elephant seals. We gathered in the cemetery and toasted Shackleton by his graveside - in rum, so much spluttering amongst the girls who were allowed to taste but declined with dignity. There is a beautiful church and wee museum in this former whaling station with its wrecked and sunken boats and whaling sheds. After a fantastic morning we couldn't believe our luck that the weather continued to be perfect and after about an hour of sailing and lunch we took to the zodiacs again and landed at Jason Harbour - more penguins, kings and gentoos who wanted to walk with us and hoards of warring fur seals as well as elephant seals. George enjoyed getting amongst the king penguins and making some friends. After a couple of hours on the beaches and at the foot of the mountains, we had a little cruise round the bay and got close to some of the smaller icebergs. The weather is still beautiful, although a wind has got up, so dinner this evening is a barbecue on deck - can't wait!
Greetings to all our friends from the Southern Ocean,