2 Dec 25 - Antarctica 25 - Sailing South In The Drake Passage

I decided on an early 05:30 start for the first day at sea in the Drake Passage. Even with this early start I failed to see the sun rise. After a quick cuppa tea I headed up to one of the bridge wings. The seas were remarkably calm for the Drake Passage, with a moderate two and a half metre swell. Ortelius is ninety metres long and she is still a fairly small ship by polar standards. These seas were creating a bit of movement, but it wasn't a problem from my perspective.

The main lounge on deck 6: It was nice and empty as I was one of the first up that morning

Deck 7 is the top deck

The big disadvantage of Ortelius is it is not possible to see forward from the bridge wings: The front of deck 6 has a forward-facing wrap-around walkway, but observers are very exposed to any headwinds on this walkway

Mid-morning in the Drake Passage: That is an impressively calm sea for the Northern end of the Drake Passage

Me watching from the port bridge wing: The photo was taken by one of the other passengers and the copyright remains with them. Unfortunately, I can't remember who took it

There was a reasonable selection of expected Seabirds on this first day at sea.

Black-browed Albatross: This is the nominate melanophris subspecies which breeds in the Antarctic & Subantarctic Islands, including islands off southern Chile, the Falklands, South Georgia, South Sandwich, Crozet, Heard & Kerguelen Islands, Macquarie Island & New Zealand's Antipodes, Snares & Campbell Islands. They range across the Southern Oceans from North of the Antarctic Convergence to the Tropic of Capricorn

Grey-headed Albatross: They breed on Subantarctic Islands off Tierra del Fuego, South Georgia, Prince Edward, Crozet, Kerguelen, Macquarie & Campbell Islands

Grey-headed Albatross: They are easily my favourite Albatross

Light-mantled Sooty Albatross: They have a cute body shape

Light-mantled Sooty Albatross: The breed on the circumpolar Subantarctic Islands and range throughout the Subantarctic & Antarctic Oceans

Cape Petrel: They are always an attractive Petrel to watch

Cape Petrel: This is the nominate capense subspecies which breeds from South Georgia to Macquarie Island, as well as, the Antarctic coast. A second subspecies breeds in the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands

Wilson's Storm-petrel

What I wasn't expecting to see were two species of Penguins, given we were over a hundred miles from the Southern-most point of mainland South America.

King Penguin: They breed breeds on the Subantarctic islands in Tierra del Fuego, the Falklands, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands, Prince Edward, Crozet, Kerguelen & Heard islands, as well as, Macquarie Island

Western Rockhopper Penguin: This party of eight Western Rockhopper Penguins were at least a hundred miles from the nearest colony which seems a long way to travel to feed

Western Rockhopper Penguin: A closer crop of the last photo. They breed on the Southern Chilean islands of the Magallanes Province and Cape Horn Archipelago & the Falkland Islands

The overall highlight of the day was a couple Antarctic Minke Whales which passed fairly close to the ship. Unfortunately, they were the only Antarctic Minke Whales I saw during the trip.

Antarctic Minke Whale: They were once thought to be a subspecies of Minke Whales, but these days they are split. They average about nine metres long, but they can grow to over ten metres. Unlike Minke Whales they have grey flippers

Antarctic Minke Whale: They occur across the Antarctic & Subantarctic Oceans and range as far North as Madagascar to North Australia in the Indian Ocean and across the Pacific to Peru & Guiana to North Angola in the South Atlantic

The plan for the cruise was to head far enough South into the Weddell Sea, so that we could use the three helicopters that we had on board to travel the final distance to the Snow Hill Emperor Penguin colony. This is the most-Northerly Emperor Penguin colony in Antarctica. Oceanwide Expeditions had a team of three pilots and their engineers from DAP Helicopters onboard. The three pilots had many decades of flying experience in Chile and Antarctica, including flying for the police and air-sea rescue. I felt we were going to be well looked after on the helicopter rides. In preparation for the helicopter flights, there was a mandatory briefing in the afternoon to get us familiar to the helicopters. This involved showing us how to approach and board the helicopters. It also allowed us to take some photos, as we wouldn't be allowed to do that when the helicopters had their rotors turning later in the cruise.

The three helicopters could carry fourteen passengers between them

Rob Luff in the middle was one of my cabin mates

The instrument panel was compact

It had been a good but long, day on deck, especially as I went back to spend some extra time after the evening meal. Then it was time for bed as I had another early alarm set for our second full day at sea.

24 Oct 24 - Happy Eleventh Birthday & 1000th Blog Post

Just over eleven years ago, I treated myself to a decent DSLR camera and 400mm lens. I was heading out to the Andaman Islands and South & North West India at the end of 2013 and I wanted to start photographing some of the Birds and other Wildlife on the trip. To address the problem of where to put the photos, I started this Blog and this is the 1000th Blog Post on the Blog's eleventh birthday.

A big reason to create the Blog was to have somewhere that I could easily look back on my photos & remember Birding trips. I have an offline back of all the Blog Posts in word documents and recently, I've been flicking through these Word documents as I stared to prepare to write this milestone Blog Post. There is an excellent range of Blog Posts covering a lot of UK and overseas Birds, Cetaceans and other Wildlife especially, Mammals, Butterflies & Dragonflies. There are a lot of surprisingly OK photos in these Blog Posts, with plenty of useful ID tips thrown in along the way. In the last eleven years I've travelled to:

• Holland (2013)

• The Andaman Islands and India (2013/14)

• Morocco & Western Sahara (2014)

• Israel (2014)

• Croatia (2014)

• Pitcairn, Henderson Island & French Polynesia (2014)

• California (2014)

• Turkey (2015)

• Finland (2016)

• Ireland (2016, 2022 & 2024)

• Colombia (2018)

• Chile (2018)

• Argentina, South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha, Ascension Island, Cape Verde to Holland (2018)

• Indonesian: Banda Sea, the Moluccas, Bali & Java (2022)

• Argentina, the Falklands, South Georgia & Antarctica (2023)

• New Zealand, Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, the Solomons & Japan (2023)

• Angola (2023)

• Tenerife, the Lesser Antilles and Spain (2024)

• Plus, many ORCA survey trips to France and Spain.

I've still got over fifty thousand photos (& four hundred GBs) of photos to still to sort out. This could easily keep me going for a year or two until I've finally cleared that backlog. Therefore, there are still lots of interesting Blog Posts still to write. For now, I will look to the start of the next thousand Blog Posts with a few tasters of photos to come: I hope you enjoy them. So, instead of looking back on the first 999 Blog Posts, I will look back on some of the recent foreign trips and look forward to some of the species coming in the next thousand Blog Posts.

The Lady Denok in the early evening light off Nustabun Island, Tanimbar (28 Oct 22)

Firstly, I've written up the Blog Posts for the fantastic Bird Tour Asia trip to the Banda Sea. This was an excellent run trip with lots of happy memories. The trip started as I arrived in Indonesia and headed East to meet the others in the Tanimbar Islands. After a clean-up of the Tanimbar endemics, we boarded the Lady Denok to travel through the ultra-remote Banda Sea islands with many superb Birds and Cetaceans, Flying Fish and a few Sea Turtles. There are too many excellent species to mention, so you will just have to read the Blog Posts.

Melon-headed Whale: This is my favourite photo from the Banda Sea tour. At sea between Leti & Wetar, Indonesia (4 Nov 22)

I had an overnight trip to Kuala Lumpur which allowed me to renew my visa before flying out to Ternate for the start of the second of my back to back Bird Tour Asia trips. This was their Remote Moluccas tour. The only major island we didn't go Birding on was Halmahera, which wasn't a problem as I had previously visited Halmahera back in 1991. This was an excellent run trip with lots of happy memories. I still need to start sorting the photos from this tour, but I will leave you with a couple of photos. I can thoroughly recommend using Bird Tour Asia for Birding tours in Asia.

Moluccan Scops Owl: Buru, Indonesia (30 Nov 22)

A mating pair of Obi Golden Tree Frogs: Obi, Indonesia (19 Nov 22)

I had some unfinished locations from the 1991 trips to Indonesia where Keith Turner & I visited all the main islands across the archipelago, as well as, parts of West Papua. But we were foiled in North Bali where Bali Starling was critically threatened with extinction & the Bali Barat National Park was closed. Fortunately, the population is looking a lot more healthy now and it is possible to visit the area and Bali Myna and Javan Banded Pitta can be seen.

Javan Banded Pitta: Bali Barat, Bali, Indonesia (7 Dec 22)

My first day of Birding was so successful, that we rejigged the plans and spent the second day of private guiding enjoying a bonus visit to see White-faced Partridge in Java. A great way to end the seven weeks of Birding in Indonesia and with no major food problems. That was until an eight day bout of salmonella kicked when the flight was about three hours out of Heathrow. After getting over the salmonella, I had about three weeks before I was off again in early Jan 2023. This time to Argentina and a trip to my final continent, Antarctica. I've already written the Blog Posts for a few days of Birding in Argentina and the Falklands.

Hourglass Dolphin: At sea between the Falklands and South Georgia (18 Jan 23)

I still need to sorting the photos from South Georgia and Antarctica. This was one of my most enjoyable foreign trips with some great company and wildlife. I still need to sort out most of the photos, but these King Penguins are one of my all-time favourite photos.

King Penguins: St Andrews Bay, South Georgia (22 Jan 23)

Only a few weeks after I got back from Antarctica, I was on the move again. This time on my third trip to New Zealand. There were very few Ticks left for me on the main islands, but three of them were Kiwis: South Island Brown Kiwi on Stewart Island, Okarito Brown Kiwi and Great Spotted Kiwi. They varied from easy, a good chance of seeing them if the weather was OK to very difficult, respectively. I got lucky after checking out a rustling just off the track which I stumbled on what proved to be my final Kiwi species. Overall, my favourite sighting in New Zealand were my second views of the gorgeous and friendly Hector's Dolphins in South Island's Marlborough Sound.

Hector's Dolphin: These lovely Hector’s Dolphins are used to the boat and often pop over to see it. Marlborough Sound, New Zealand (17 Mar 23)

Next, it was on to Auckland for the Heritage Expeditions West Pacific Odyssey from New Zealand to Japan. I was looking forward to this expedition ship, but I had been forewarned about the likely problems with this company by a mate who had travelled with them pre-covid, where promised landings in Japan were cancelled as they hadn't arranged landing permissions. The company refused to refund the landing fees or compensate for these problems. I will go into the full details of the problems we experienced with Heritage Expeditions & how they tried to cover up C19 on the ship when I write the Blog Posts. They failed to manage it once news was out about the cover up, whilst allowing landings to continue in the Solomons, despite not testing the passengers for C19 and thus exposing the islanders to risks of infection. The same had happened in New Caledonia, but the passengers weren't aware of the cover up at that stage and no precautions were in place. Heritage Expeditions failure to tackle & control C19, meant we were not allowed to land on Truk in Micronesia, which was one of the main reasons I signed up for the trip. Following on from this we were banned from all the Japanese island landings by our C19 status. To compensate for all these cockups, Heritage Expeditions refunded two hundred US dollars, which was only part of the landing fees we had paid for Truk and the Japanese islands, pretended it was a goodwill gesture and then told us we had to spend it on the ship before we left or we would lose it. Heritage Expeditions refused to compensate the passengers for all the problems of the ship, other than to offer us the chance on another cruise with them. I am one of a number of passengers who wouldn't touch this company again with a bargepole. I certainly wouldn't recommend anybody else booking with them, which is a shame as I have good memories of travelling with Rodney Russ in 2001 to the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. But the current company management is very different to Rodney's hands on style.

Kagu: This is a major family for Bird Family Listers. However, it can be easily seen on a package holiday from Brisbane & without the short time pressures we endured. Keith Turner & I nearly cleaned up in about four days of Birding on the island. On the Heritage Expeditions trip, we were rushed out of the excellent National Park, so we could spent another thirty minutes or more Birding in piss-poor secondary habitat at the edge of Riviere Bleue Park. All of our landings were shorter than promised in the brochure and sometimes in the previous day's briefing. New Caledonia (26 Mar 23)

While I was in New Zealand, I got offered a place with mates Phil Hansbro and Richard Carden on a private tour of Angola run by their pal Niall Perrins in June 23. This was a great trip where we saw all the Angolan endemic species. I've already written up all of this trip on the Blog starting with the first day and ending at the stunning scenery on the Tundavala Escarpment.

Tundavala Escarpment, Angola: Some of my most memorable days is Birding around escarpments like this in Africa and the days here were the highlight of the trip for me (1 Jul 23)

Since I got back from Angola, I've been focusing on a building project on my cottage, with lots of local Birding and ferry survey trips for ORCA and Marinelife to France, Spain and the Channel Isles. But I also was offered a place in a team of four ORCA surveyors on a Saga cruise from Pompey to Tenerife, eight landings in the Lesser Antilles and North Spain. This was a working trip where we were surveying every day for the full time at sea, except for meal breaks. In addition to the surveying, there was a lot of passenger engagement with the delightful passengers on the ship who would spent part of each day on the top deck with us, enjoying the Cetaceans, Seabirds, Flying Fish and a few elusive Sea Turtles.

Sowerby's Beaked Whale: My Cetacean highlight & Tick on the Saga Caribbean Calypso whilst we were at sea off the Bay of Biscay (20 Jan 24)

Once we got to the Lesser Antilles, we enjoyed daily runs ashore on Grenada, Barbados, Martinique, St Lucia, Bequia, Dominique, Nevis and Antigua. When there were Ticks for me on the islands, I headed out in chartered taxis where I managed to see most of the potential Ticks. I will start posting the Blog Posts for this trip in the near future.

Purple-throated Carib: St Lucia (2 Feb 24)

Martinique Anole: I photographed this Martinique endemic in the Botanical Gardens, Martinique (1 Feb 24)

Hopefully there will be plenty of other interesting Blog Posts from local Birding, survey trips with ORCA and Marinelife, as well as, hopefully more ORCA surveying trips on Saga cruises and some future foreign trips that I still want to do. It should be an interesting next thousand Blog Posts. I hope you continue to enjoy reading these Blog Posts.

24 Oct 23 - Happy Tenth Birthday

It's ten years ago since I decided to buy a decent digital camera. My mate Pete Moore recommended I bought a Canon 7D & 400 mm lens. Pete also helped me get up to speed on the best settings for this combination. My first trip out was eventful as I was photographing a Kingfisher at Middlebere, when news broke about a Pallid Swift at Christchurch. I ended up getting thrown in at the deep end with trying to photograph a Pallid Swift in flight that afternoon. This was my first Blog Post.

Pallid Swift: This Pallid Swift on my first day out with the camera really pushed my comfort zone (24 Oct 13)

I've written another 885 Blog Posts since that first Blog Post. For this tenth birthday Blog Post, I will pick my favourite Blog Post from each Blog year. This is a particularly hard task as there are so many Blog Posts to choose from.

I'm not sure how I managed to get out Birding in the first year of having the camera, as I managed to create 229 Blog Posts during the first Blog year. I took a year off between contracts to travel to the Andamans & mainland India in Dec 13 to Jan 14, quickly followed by a short nine day trip to Morocco & Western Sahara in Feb 14, a week in Israel in Apr 14 and a three day trip to Croatia in May 14. With so many Blog Posts to chose from it is difficult to work out a favour Blog Post, so I've based it on this photo of four Wild Asses walking across a salt pan at Desert Coursers in Gujarat, India.

Four Wild Asses walking across a salt pan: Desert Coursers in Gujarat, India (17 Jan 14)

I was still taking a break between contracts at the start of the second Blog year, but that was because I was about to head off on the expedition ship, Braveheart, to Pitcairn Island, Henderson Island and remote French Polynesian islands. Pitcairn and Henderson Islands had been high on my list of places that I dreamt of visiting, with Pitcairn Island for its history of the Bounty mutineers and neighbouring Henderson Island for its endemic species. However, I never thought would be possible to visit this remote British dependence, until I saw Wildwings were offering a two week trip on the Braveheart to Pitcairn and Henderson Islands and some nearby French Polynesian islands with a few days on Tahiti. I booked up as soon as I saw that trip advertised. One of the other attractions was the opportunity to land on remote uninhabited islands in French Polynesia which were the home to several more island endemics: the highlight of which was obvious the enigmatic Tuamotu Sandpiper.

Tuamotu Sandpiper: The sweet-toothed Wader, Tenararo, French Polynesia (12 Nov 14)

It is a different subject for my favourite Blog Post of the third Blog year. I had spent a fair bit of this Blog year working on a long contract in Winchester & that limited my travelling. But there was an opportunity for a mini break to Ireland with Dave Gibbs & Paul Chapman that Autumn for a Royal Tern. After getting good views of the Royal Tern, we headed down to The Dingle for the evening where Dave & Paul planned to run a moth trap. There wasn't room in the accommodation for the three of us, so I headed off and found a B&B in the nearby village of Annascaul. By chance this is the village with the famous South Pole Inn which was owned & run by legendary Polar Explorer, Tom Crean. Crean travelled to the Antarctic three times with Scott & Shackleton and he was one of the three men, along with Shackleton & Worsley, to cross the South Georgia mountain range. He is one of the unsung heroes of the Golden Era of Polar Exploration and his story is as inspiration as Shackleton's story in my eyes.

Tom Crean's statue: This great statue sits in a small park to commemorate Tom & it is opposite his pub, the South Pole Inn (28 Aug 16)

The fourth Blog year was a quiet year where I was having to focus on the Winchester contract. There was no opportunity for foreign travel. I will stick to the historical theme of the last Blog Post. I drove past the Fovant Badges in Wiltshire in Apr 17 & this was a good opportunity to see the new Badge that had recently been carved into the down. The lost London Rifle Brigade Badge had been re-carved, one century after the Badges were originally carved. The others were created by the regiments who were training in the area before they were sent to the First World War trenches. Sadly, for many soldiers this area will have been the last part of England that they spent a lot of time in. It's great to see that volunteers are spending the time to not only look after the existing Badges, but to re-carve one of the lost ones.

The Fovant Badges: The lost London Rifle Brigade has been re-carved between the Post Office Rifles and the Devonshire Regiment (11 Apr 17)

Finally, the contract came to an end & I was free to travel again in the fifth Blog year. I planned a three month trip away, started in Colombia on a Birdquest tour with my late good mate Brian Field. I then squeezed in a couple of weeks on my own exploring Chile before flying to Ushuaia and boarding the Oceanwide Expeditions ship, Plancius, for a seven week trip from Ushuaia to Holland via South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha, St Helena, Ascension Island and Cape Verde. It is very hard to pick a standout day in such an amazing and varied three months. Ultimately, it would have to be a Blog Post from the time spent on the Plancius during the Atlantic Odyssey or West African Pelagic. On this trip, I saw about forty percent of the World's Seabirds, twenty-six of the ninety one Cetaceans and four of the seven species of Sea Turtles. I also got to visit another couple of remote British dependencies. I think the highlight Blog Post has to be the one where we saw a group of Flying Squid. I wasn't aware that Flying Squid existed, until we saw them & I'm glad to have got a photo of one group.

Flying Squid sp.: At Sea Tristan da Cunha to St Helena (15 Apr 18)

I spent most of the sixth Blog year working on another long term contract back in Winchester. Again, there was no time for foreign travel, so the Blog year was mainly local Birding and other Wildlife. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to spend a weekend on Shetland twitching the Tengmalm's Owl. For me, this was one of those mythical species on the British List which I never thought would occur again, let alone give Birders a chance of seeing it. It was one of the memorable twitches, but it was spoilt a bit by bad behaviour from two unknown twitchers that evening.

Tengmalm's Owl: Bixter with lighting thanks to Pratt-boy who insisted on turning on his torch against the instructions of the locals & houseowners (23 Feb 19)

The main event of the seventh Blog year was the C19 outbreak, especially losing the whole of the Spring to the lockdown. I was restricted to blogging about #BWKM0, Birdwatching at Kilometre zero which was a hashtag that was used a lot for Birders watching from home. However, the standout trip for me was my last carefree pre-C19 twitch to see a long staying Hermit Thrush on St Mary's. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to day trip to St Mary's to see it over a weekend. Eventually, I bit the bullet and took a day's unpaid leave on about the last nice weather day of the year. I saw it just in time as it departed a few days later.

Hermit Thrush: St Mary's (4 Dec 19)

Continuing to work from home was the one positive of the second year of C19. I was doing a lot of local Birding, but it took me some time to get back into the twitching and I ensured that the handful of twitches I went on were conducted in a safe way as far as C19 was concerned. So, masks in garages & shops and no lift sharing. The stand out twitch was to Tenby in Wales to see Wally, my first Walrus. However, I wasn't expecting Wally to be upstaged by a very showy Harbour Porpoise who put on a superb display that evening.

Wally the Walrus: Tenby (16 Apr 21)

Harbour Porpoise: Tenby (16 Apr 21)

The nineth Blog year saw me take early retirement from the IT world and look forward to more Birding opportunities. I managed two enjoyable and C19 safe mini-breaks to Ireland to see the Egyptian Vulture & a Northern Harrier, with the showy Baikal Teal on the Somerset Levels on the first trip & the Least Tern on the second trip. But the best day of the Blog year was another memorable twitch to the Scillies for the Blackburnian Warbler. This was upstaged on the way back by finding a Loggerhead Turtle on the return journey: there less than two hundred & fifty UK records.

Blackburnian Warbler: Bryher (17 Oct 22)

Loggerhead Turtle: At sea St Mary's to Penzance (17 Oct 22)

The tenth Blog year finally saw the return to overseas travel with a spate of C19 delayed foreign trips. It started with seven weeks returning to Indonesia with Bird Tour Asia trips to the Banda Sea & Remote Moluccas. I then had a few days Birding in Sulawesi, Bali & Java looking for Birds I had missed in the sixteen weeks I had spent over three long visits in 1991 & 1992. In Jan, I was travelled again with a week in Argentina before rejoining the Plancius & heading for the Falklands, South Georgia & Antarctica. In the late Winter, I was off again for my third trip to New Zealand looking for & seeing my last three Kiwis before joining what was to be a badly run and very disappointing West Pacific Odyssey from New Zealand to Japan, where the ship failed to put basic rules in place to manage a C19 outbreak onboard. The result is we were not allowed to land at Truk in Micronesia or on the planned Japanese islands. I will provide more detail of how badly Heritage Expeditions mismanaged the trip when I get around to sorting out the photos. For now I will not recommend anybody travels with Heritage Expeditions. Having completed all the C19 delayed trips, I managed to squeeze in a bonus trip to Angola with a couple of good mates, Phil Hansbro & Richard Carden in June. Again it's going to be hard to select a single Blog Post to adequately sum up the year. But in contrast to the disastrous Heritage Expeditions trip, the Oceanwide Expeditions cruise to Antarctica was a delight & another well-run trip with this excellent & professional expedition company. I've not had chance to sort out the photos, but I will leave this as my favourite photo of the trip & one of my favourite photos of the last ten years.

King Penguin: St Andrews Bay, South Georgia (22 Jan 23)

These are only a few of the 886 Blog Posts that I've written to date. There are many more Bird, Cetacean, Sea Turtle, Butterfly, Dragonfly or other Posts. I hope this has wetted your appetite to explore other Blog Posts which can be searched for on date or using the species lists on the right hand side of the Blog. Finally, thanks for helping to generate the over six hundred thousand Blog hits over the last decade. Hopefully, the next decade will be as varied and enjoyable as the last decade.

21 Jan 23 - The Antarctica Trip - Shackleton's Waterfall, South Georgia

We were stood down at our planned landing as the gale force winds hammering down the glacier were clearly too dangerous to put the zodiacs in the water. We headed off to breakfast in the hope that the wind speed would half from the sixty to seventy mph early morning winds. Sometimes that can happen in an hour or two. However, it was clear by the time that we were finishing breakfast, that this wasn't the case. As often needed in South Georgia, the Expedition Leader Ali had a plan B and we were soon heading onto the nearby bay at Stromness. Fortunately, we were the only Expedition ship in this part of South Georgia at the time and a change of venue could be quickly agreed with the South Georgia authorities. We arrived to find the wind was still strong, but it quickly calmed down enough to land.

The derelict whaling station: It was a much larger whaling station that the one at Prince Olav Harbour

Heading into the beach

Almost there

The view of the whaling station from the beach

The buildings aren't in great shape

Clearly the winds have taken their toll over the decades

It was certainly a large whaling station

There were some large propellers on the beach: Just as we saw at Prince Olav Harbour

We weren't going to be able to get any closer: Quite wise given the lack of maintenance with the whaling stations, as well as, the asbestos etc. But it will also reduce the risk of damage to these historical sites by tourists trying to explore them or maybe even to take items away as souvenirs

There were scattered groups of Antarctic Fur Seals and Southern Elephant Seals along the beach and with part of the beach being out of bounds, it meant individuals in that area weren't disturbed. But all the ones I saw weren't bothered by the visitors. However, earlier in the breeding season the Male Southern Elephant Seals can be more dangerous when they are fighting each other for the Females. There was a leucistic Antarctic Fur Seal pup which proved to be very popular, as it was very photogenic.

Antarctic Fur Seal: I had seen one of these leucistic Antarctic Fur Seal pups in the Prince Olav Harbour from the zodiac, but now we had a photogenic pup on the beach

Antarctic Fur Seal: This leucistic Antarctic Fur Seal pup was very popular as it was very photogenic

Antarctic Fur Seal: They looked very glossy when they had just come out of the water

After photographing the leucistic Antarctic Fur Seal and the whaling station at a distance, we had all the passengers ashore. One of the options was to walk to Shackleton's Waterfall with some of the Expedition staff. I was obviously keen on this idea, which also had the bonus of getting the chance to stretch my legs, even if it was only a three mile round walk. There were Penguins and Seals along the walk along the floodplain.

King Penguin: There were about one hundred and fifty King Penguins at Stromness

Gentoo Penguin: This Gentoo Penguin was just enjoying a kip in the sun

Antarctic Fur Seal: They have some sharp teeth on them. Another reason for keeping a good distance with them. When I went to the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands in 2001, one of the Kiwi Wildlife team was unlucky to be bitten by a Seal on Macquarie Island: it had walked up behind her without her realising. Maybe some Australian foreplay. Fortunately, not a serious bite, but an incident that always made sure I was keeping a reasonable distance from the adults

Southern Elephant Seal: They are beach body ready providing the beach is in the Southern Oceans

Southern Elephant Seal: There were Southern Elephant Seals scattered throughout the floodplain

Personally, I was happy with this change of venue as Stromness is an important site in the Shackleton story. It was the whaling station that Ernest Shackleton, Frank Worsley and Tom Crean finally walked into, after their epic boat crossing of the Drake Passage from Elephant Island. They finally reached South Georgia on the rough South coast at King Haakan Bay. Their small boat was sufficiently damaged in the landing to be unable to put back to sea in it.

Heading across the floodplain towards Shackleton's Waterfall

Shackleton took his two strongest companions and despite not having proper climbing equipment, they made the first crossing of South Georgia's mountains. Finally, after twenty-eight hours of walking, they heard the hooter at Stromness to call the whalers to work. But it was another eight hours of descending and walking before they finally walked into the Stromness whaling station. I wrote a Blog Post after my first visit about Shackleton, Wild, Worsley & Crean.

It was good to be able to stretch our legs on this walk

This was their first contact with the outside world since they left South Georgia, eighteen months earlier. A boat rescued Shackleton's three companions from King Haakan Bay the following day. It was to take three attempts over the next three months from South America, before Shackleton finally managed to rescue the rest of his stranded crew on Elephant Island. More of that in a future Blog Post.

Looking back towards the whaling station and the Plancius

There is still a way to go till we got to the waterfall

It was stunning scenery

Finally, we reached Shackleton's Waterfall.

Shackleton's Waterfall: This would have looked more impressive in Shackleton's day given the colder weather. Also, Shackleton arrived at Stromness in mid-May, so it would have been well into the Winter for him

Back on the beach, I spent some time photographing some of the Wilson's Storm-petrels that were feeding just off the water's edge.

Wilson's Storm-petrel

Wilson's Storm-petrel

Wilson's Storm-petrel

Brown Skua: This Brown Skua flew past close to the beach

Gentoo Penguin

Gentoo Penguin: This Gentoo Penguin was confident at walking through the Antarctic Fur Seal pups

We still had a bit of time left & I wasn't in a hurry to get back into a zodiac

The Expedition Leader Ali: Ali did an excellent job of running the expedition

Doc Marieke was a Dutch GP: The ship's doctor usually had a great time, when things were going well. But it can be a very tough role, if there is a major injury onboard and the doc has to tell the Captain to turn the ship around to head to the nearest proper hospital. Fortunately, I've not been on a ship where that has occurred, but I'm aware of a few instances where its happened

Boots cleaning is vital on every landing: We cleaned our boots on the ship before we landed. They were cleaned before reboarding the zodiac & cleaned again once we were back on the ship. This is designed to minimise transfer of plant seeds and bugs from one colony to another. It's will be even more important now that Bird Flu has reached the Southern Oceans

this was an easy departure from the beach: Sometimes the water can be quite rough and it's essential to get back onto the zodiac as quickly as possible, to help the expedition team who are trying to hold the zodiac at the water's edge

It had been a great morning and we were heading for Grytviken for the afternoon. If the weather held that would be fantastic to see Grytviken in the sunshine.