20 February 2022 – Sunday – Log from Anne

Our day started at Fortuna Bay. We were brought to the beach for a walk past many seals of various sizes including the very impressive elephant seals. We learned that only the adult males have “trunks” and they have left the area for the coming winter. We continued across a boggy plain to see another large colony of king penguins. King penguins often seem very curious to find out who these large beings in bright orange coats might be. They walk up pretty close to us so we can take lots of photos.  It was easy to see a range of new chicks, year old brown furry penguins, and full adults.

We watched a large Skua bird who had grabbed a baby penguin for a meal. It can be upsetting to watch this natural part of the food chain but our naturalist told us that a small baby chick at this time often cannot survive the winter anyway. Several predator birds were taking turns pecking at the kill. A large storm petrel took over for a while as it spread its wings out to menace others who might try to steal its food. One penguin behavior that seemed different was that several adult king penguins were advancing towards the petrel. We had not seen any other penguins dare to challenge a predator bird.

The big penguin colonies mostly rely on safety in being grouped together. We watched the birds swoop down to push the penguins to run and allow a slower small bird to be left behind. As our naturalist pointed out, none of us humans hunt for all our food. So this behavior is completely normal in the animal world to insure survival of the fittest.

We moved on to Hercules bay which was just around the corner for the afternoon activity. As we were arriving in Hercules bay, Sheri our leader, called us for a meeting. We have learned that this trip is truly an expedition and plans change for many reasons. We knew there was something major about to happen because the ship’s captain Heidi was waiting to speak. Sheri started by telling us that our plan for the next day to do a hike over Shackleton’s path was only possible in perfect weather which was not predicted. She then showed us the wind predictions around South Georgia were for up to 60 knots sustained. Then the captain spoke saying that for our safety and comfort she had decided to leave South Georgia going towards the Falklands after the Hercules bay outing. She said we would be pushing as fast as possible to try to get ahead of the storm. As Mark pointed out, 60 knots on the chart didn’t include what would likely be higher gusts.
Our captain is in charge and she decides what is safe. There was no discussion.

Our Hercules bay outing was either a RIB ride or a kayaking trip around the bay. It was actually snowing and blowing hard as the afternoon began so we decided to take the RIB ride where we saw a nice colony of macaroni penguins. They live in the cliffs and around tussock grass mounds. Penguins have clawed feet that seems to make them good climbers.
We moved out to sea by late afternoon and felt the ship begin to roll. This ship has high tech roll stabilizers that help keep us from side to side rolling but the forward and back motion of waves can still affect the ship. We were again very pleased that we had chosen cabins on the lowest passenger deck midship where motion is least noticeable.

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