s/v Sila: Photos: The End of January in Grytviken, South Georgia

This collection of photos is from our first few days in Grytviken, South Georgia

Adam and Jack Rabbit checking out the first of hundreds of Elephant Seals and King Penguins we would see during our month in South Georgia.

On the hill above Grytviken, the old whaling station, You can just see Sila and a charter boat on the dock

One of just a few operational vehicles on South Georgia, this truck belongs to the crew of builders who do maintenance and repairs in Grytviken

We spent a few hours hauling rocks to load these gabions to staunch the erosion near Gull Lake, above Grytviken. I really enjoy doing these sorts of service projects, in this case with the builders.

Our hosts, Martin and Jeff, with our completed gabions in the foreground

The Rabbit in front of the old whaling station in Grytviken

A juvenile king penguin, with Sila and a charter boat in the background. Sila was one of only two private sailboats that visited South Georgia this season.

With the cold water, less than 5 degrees Celsius, it was easy to store fresh food under the floorboards. Here we are enjoying a steak dinner with steaks from Argentina.

We enjoyed learning about the rat eradication project, which Jack Rabbit wrote about in his post, The Letters of South Georgia. Here the boys are sitting with a rat bait stick, used to track the presence of rats. We were happy to see that there were no teeth marks on this one!

On a hike above Grytviken

Overlooking West Cumberland Bay

A sooty albatross chick

The beaches were all covered with fur seals- mostly pups, elephant seals molting, and penguins.

A gentoo penguin with the Ernest Shackleton, a supply ship, in the background. We had been lucky enough to tour the Ernest Shackleton in the Falkland Islands with our friend Will Whatley, who is the Chief Officer on this ship. Porter spent a lot of time on South Georgia learning to set up and take great photos- this is one of his.

It was very moving to visit the grave of Ernest Shackleton, one of the great expedition leaders of all time.

Not really sure why this elephant seal chose the ditch in front of the whaler's cemetery...

Most fur seal pups looked like this

But we got lucky to see some blond fur seal pups. Apparently 1 in 1000 is blond.

In addition to visiting Shackleton's grave, we also walked out to the point where his memorial stands. As is tradition, we each drank a rum toast and shared some with Sir Ernest.

The British Antarctic Survey has a research station at King Edward Point, near Grytviken. We stopped and spent an hour with these two scientists, Mark and Sue. They showed us their lab and told us a lot about what they are researching.

Sue holds up a frozen Patagonian Toothfish next to the Rabbit. The Toothfish fishery is monitored carefully around South Georgia and appears to be in good shape right now. You may have eaten some yourself as it is marketed as Chilean Sea Bass; unfortunately, not all Chilean Sea Bass comes from fisheries that are as healthy as the one surrounding South Georgia.

Porter checks out the ear bone of a Patagonia Toothfish in the microscope. Much like counting rings on a tree stump, this is how you can judge the age of the fish.

We visited a gentoo penguin colony and saw many like this adult-chick pair.

Adam, Rabbit and Molly near the gentoos.

In his post from February 7 called Eating and Conserving, Porter wrote about the great meal we had on board Sila near Husvik, another abandoned whaling station. We ate reindeer steaks, patagonian toothfish and dandelion salad- all from South Georgia, with four of the folks who were working on the island this season to eradicate invasive plant species. It was a wonderful evening!

Porter at the helm as we leave Husvik. We had numerous moving days that looked like this- absolutely beautiful!

Risk: a perfect rainy afternoon activity

Here you can see "smoke on the water in Whale Harbor. For the water to be whipped off the surface like this, it needs to be blowing at least 50 knots. We had more than eight hours of big gusts and williwaws, wind that comes down off the side of the mountain, that inspired us to stand anchor watch throughout the afternoon and well into the night before it finally calmed down.