A 6.30am zodiac ride to Fortuna Bay, with a spectacular mountainous backdrop and glacier, gave us the opportunity to sit again amongst king penguins and fur seals, including lots of young pups, who often tried to attack…in a playful way – although if you didn’t stand firm and clap your hands you would get a nasty bite!In the afternoon, the Vavilov took us via Leith and Stromness whaling stations – inaccessible due to a 200 exclusion zone due to asbestos pollution before we moved on to Grytviken. Even from a distance you could see and imagine the scene of operational whaling stations (which was still working up until 1966).
Visiting Grytviken, an old UK whaling station, really brought home the reality of what we humans did in the 1900s to wipe out 100s of thousands of whales and seals to drive them to the point of extinction. Seal numbers in South Georgia have now recovered and the Islands abundance of fur seals, for example, (c 4 million) now represents 95% of the world’s fur seal population. However, the depletion of the world’s whale population at present remains a legacy of human interference in the ecosystem of the Southern Oceans.
Grytviken is also home to the grave of Shackleton and the museum gives a fascinating insight into the history of his epic voyages and the sealing and whaling history of the island.
