After spending one and a half days at sea after leaving Port Stanley, we awoke on the second morning with another full day and night at sea, before we reached South Georgia. Overnight we crossed into the Antarctic Convergence Zone. This is a roughly circular zone around Antarctica of cold seas which includes South Georgia and the Southern most of the New Zealand Subantarctic islands. But it doesn't include Tierra del Fuego or the Falklands, despite these areas being as far South as South Georgia. This seems to be due to the Cape Horn current which flows West past Tierra del Fuego and whilst it is a cold current, it's not as cold as the Antarctic sea temperatures. As a consequence, the Jan sea temperatures dropped significantly from the typically nine degrees around the Falklands to three degrees around South Georgia. Some of the species we saw were repeats of those that we had seen on the first day of the crossing.
The seas hadn't moderated overnight
The view from the starboard bridge wing: If asked which was their favourite place on the ship, many of the passengers would have said the lounge, the bar, the restaurant or their cabin. For me, the clear winner for my happy space was whichever bridge wing was most out of the wind that day. The front of the bridge wing is semi-enclosed which provides some additional shelter, whilst allowing a good clear view of the sea. It wasn't unusual for me to head back up there after dinner until it finally got dark, despite spending most of the day when we were at sea on the bridge wings
The port bridge wing as we came into Grytviken, South Georgia (21 Jan 23)
Wandering Albatross: Male. The white forewing indicates this is an Adult Male
Wandering Albatross: Male. The same individual. The staining on the back of the head is excess salt that they expel from their beak. Wandering Albatrosses have a different head shape, as the other species of Albatrosses do not collect salt deposits on their heads
Black-bellied Storm-petrel: They were still the commonest Storm-petrel with seventeen seen. However, I also saw ten Wilson's Storm-petrels which was another sign that we were getting closer to their South Georgian breeding grounds
Black-bellied Storm-petrel
Another sign of the colder waters were a few small icebergs.
Our first iceberg of the trip
But we also saw some species that are typical of colder waters around South Georgia.
King Penguin: This was one of five King Penguins I saw during the day. This individual was probably over two hundred miles out to sea from South Georgia. There are around fifteen hundred pairs on the Falklands, but that compares with four hundred and fifty thousand pairs on South Georgia
Antarctic Prion: The common Prion around South Georgia is Antarctic Prion
Antarctic Prion: The darker grey chest patch, the heavier bill and a stronger M on the upperparts help to separate this species from the Slender-billed Prions that we had seen in the waters around the Falklands
Antarctic Prion: The Antarctic Prions on South Georgia are darker above with darker lores and a smaller white eyebrow than their populations in the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. Is there a cryptic species waiting to be discovered?
Antarctic Prion: These are presumably the South Georgian banksi subspecies (although to be certain you need to see one with a spray can in the foot)
Antarctic Fur Seal: Like the King Penguin, this sleeping Antarctic Fur Seal was a long way out from its breeding ground. It suddenly woke up, dived, before reappearing to look at what had disturbed its sleep
On the two trips I've been on the Plancius, I've always opted for a bunk in the four-berth cabins. The two-berth cabins are a fair bit more expensive for a bit of extra space and a proper window. But the four-berth cabin space is adequate and basically I just need a comfortable bunk, some storage space and the built in toilet/shower area. After all, I'm not spending a lot of time in the cabin, especially when it's not getting dark till about 22:00 and in Antarctica it was light just before 04:00. All the four berth cabins are down on deck three and they only have small portholes.
The four berth cabins were fine for sleeping as Bill (front) & Alexi demonstrated: But they were a bit tight if we were all moving around at the same time. That was only ever a small problem as we got ready for landings. It would be more worrying if we were in an emergency situation where we had to grab warm clothes, life jackets etc and were potentially against the clock
A typical view from the cabin's porthole
In these seas, the porthole changes to the inside of a washing machine: I wasn't surprised to return to the cabin later on to find that the metal porthole cover had been screwed down by the crew. It wasn't unbolted until we reach the calm seas around the Antarctic peninsula, only to be secured shut again for our return crossing through the Drake Passage in a Force 8 gale
The Expedition Leader, Ali, held a mandatory briefing during the day to describe the plans for our first day in South Georgia and also to run through the biosecurity procedures. After that we were all called in groups to bring up everything we would be taking ashore so we could thoroughly clean the boots, clothes, coats, bags, camera cases etc that we would take ashore, to ensure there was no soil on anything and no seeds left over from the last time those items were used. The cleaning has to be especially thorough whenever there was any velcro strips on clothes, coats etc as they are really good at retaining seeds. Later in the trip we were inspected by a South Georgia Government official at Grytviken, who was pleased to tell Ali that he didn't find any problems. Most of the ship's passengers were also pleased when they were given a free alcoholic round with dinner for this status. Being teetotal, I wasn't worried about a free drink as I wasn't being charged for the soft drinks, but I was pleased that the ship passed the inspection. After all, none of us wanted to introduce an unwanted European, American or Argentinian plant on South Georgia.
Ali confirming we would all be seeing some King Penguins on the Salisbury Plain landing in the morning: Having visited Salisbury Plain before I knew it would be a good start to our landings in South Georgia
