The weather forecast we saw in Grytviken yesterday prepared us for today: bad weather again. A hard wind is blowing, the visibility is limited and it rains. But Fortuna Bay, our landing site this morning, is reasonably sheltered from the elements.
A smooth zodiac ride brings us to the beach in front of a large glacier. We
step ashore on a large flood plain. Several streams cross the plain carrying
the glacier's melt off into the bay. Scattered around are numerous groups of
king penguins.
A group of about hundred penguins huddles together on the snow-covered lower slope of the glacier. They're pretty shy, walking up the white incline when we approach them. Although the wind is almost absent by now, a steady rain still continues to fall.
We slowly follow the shoreline to our left and watch the king penguins do their daily business. It's busy on the beach. Penguins enter the sea to go out feeding. Others come ashore and start walking towards the colony. A lonely chinstrap penguin tries to make friends with a group of kings. Every now and then a fur seal wants to chase us off its territory. Fortunately a small tickle of their whiskers with our bamboo poles is enough to stop the attack and keep the seal at a distance.
Just after being ferried across a swollen creek we see a leucistic fur seal pup. Leucistic animals lack the skin pigment that "normal" animals have but contrary to true albinos they don't have a pink skin or red eyes. We watch it a while playing with other pups. Its different color doesn't scare the other pups. Leucistic fur seals are quite rare and we were fortunate to see one. Behind us the procession of kings going in and out the water continues.
Meanwhile it has stopped raining. A low grass-covered hill in front of us contains a small gentoo colony. Apparently there's abundant food here as the chicks are considerably larger than on Steeple Jason.
The feeding behavior is fun to watch. Ticking with its bill against its parent's bill the small chick begs for krill. We slide down again on the other side of the hill trying to stay clear of a bunch of fur seals.
Although our time ashore is running short we can't resist watching a cute South Georgia pintail swimming in a tiny bowl-shaped pool. It's a little bit shy but finally accepts us as part of the environment. The last few hundred meters we have to walk between a couple of elephant seals and just as it starts raining again we climb back aboard the Polar Star.
During lunch we go back to the Bay of Isles. With the imminent closing of Albatross Island for conservation reasons Doug wants to try everything possible to visit the island while it is still allowed.
When we reach our destination it's dry and the wind is acceptable. Let's hope it will keep like this so we don't have to cancel the landing as we had to two days before.
On shore we climb approximately 50 meters through a small gully. At the top we're separated in groups of twelve people in order to reduce our impact on the albatrosses. For the same reason we have to keep a minimum distance of 25 meters to these beautiful animals. Together with Doug we climb higher up the island to find a nice viewing point.
Right in front of us we see three wandering albatrosses displaying. In a complex series of bows, sky pointing and the touching of each other's bill the two male albatrosses try to impress the female at the same time trying to keep each other away from the female. The display is at its most impressive when the wandering albatross spreads its wings, a full 3.5 meter.
After about 20 minutes we leave for a different spot. Almost immediately we find a new couple of albatrosses in display. And when we intend to leave after a while a new pair of wanderers arrive that also start displaying. Although it's still dry, the wind is increasing and the temperature steadily drops. A gale is approaching us and at a certain moment we really have to leave these beautiful birds.
Through the same gully as we went up we now climb down, through muddy areas and around charging fur seals. When we reach the beach again, it has filled with hundreds of fur seals. Their sounds fill the air. But there's no time left to make pictures or shoot some video. We really have to go back to the ship. The weather is getting worse and the waves are growing higher and higher. Although the swell is considerable, we manage to get aboard without getting wet. During the evening the weather improves again offering us some nice views on the Morris and Lucas glaciers in front of us.