12th November 2015. Grytviken, South Georgia.

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(Map of journey . . . . (4. Grytviken)).

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Continuing the walk from the last post, here is an elephant seal bull recovering from a challenge for a harem.  Whaling detritus behind.  They used to hunt elephant seals as well as whales.

 

Another male elephant seal lurking in the shallows.

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Whalebones that have probably been there a very long time.

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Remains of a ship that wasn’t going anywhere soon.

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Shackleton’s tombstone.

For those who aren’t aware of the history:  Sir Ernest Shackleton launched an expedition to walk across Antarctica, from one ship to another, via the South Pole, in 1914, just before the first World War started.  Unfortunately, his ship was crushed in pack ice in the Weddell Sea before they got to land.  They left the ship and camped on the ice floe until it began to break up so they sailed 560 kilometres in three ship’s lifeboats to reach Elephant Island off the Antarctic Peninsula.  Elephant Island was seldom visited by ships though, so Shackleton had one of the ship’s boats strengthened and with five others set of on a 1,300 kilometre journey to whaling stations on South Georgia, where he would find help.  They survived a savage storm that sunk a 500-ton ship in the general area, to land on the south coast of South Georgia.  Rather than try to sail round, in another incredible feat, Shackleton and two others climbed over the the mountains to reach assistance on the other side.  Eventually, all were rescued and the only death was a sailor who was injured when the ship was crushed.

He died on board ship in harbour in South Georgia in 1921 at the start of another expedition and was buried there.

The 1914-1916 expedition was also remarkable for the photographs of Frank Hurley.

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Once a whaleboat.  I’d turned around by this stage, back towards the zodiacs.

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It’s no surprise from this view that Grytviken is the most sheltered harbour in South Georgia.

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I head back past the whaling ship “Petrel” again.

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… and past the decaying factories of death….

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They might look like elephant tusks in the foreground but they are the rib bones of whales.

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Still chained to the past…

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… and walking past more rusted relics of a less than memorable past.

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Almost back where we started, now.

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Waiting zodiacs, whale bones and dead ships.

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And here he is, still in place, the King Penguin from the beginning of the previous post.

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