St Andrews Bay (Take 1)

12th November 2015. St Andrews Bay, South Georgia.

(Map of journey . . . . (6. St Andrews Bay)).

Our next stop sailing down the coast of South Georgia was St Andrews Bay, where we would return some days later. We all got up well before dawn and piled into the zodiacs for the landing but I was in one of the last zodiacs so arrived just for the last of the dawn colours.

The wildlife in this post is almost entirely king penguins and elephant seals.

And sometimes some humans. The elephant seal pups can be very friendly. They start off about 80 kilos but they are quite harmless because they don’t yet have teeth.

Three king penguins in front of a varied vista in the early morning.

The one in front probably knows where they’re going….

Nothing like a nice comfortable place to sleep in the early morning sun.

Penguin city.

Threading past the elephant seals.

A couple of youngsters having fun.

This bull elephant seal wants to be taken a bit more seriously though.

Threading past the seals at the edge of the waves….

The upside-down face of the elephant seal at top left looks almost like the face of some strange Japanese toy (if you imagine it as being the right way around).

One group going in; another swimming past.

I’d walked for a long while along the beach and past a small river to get to a raised viewpoint for this view. It gives you some understanding of the amazing profusion of wildlife there. I probably would have preferred it without the photographer but I’m not going to try to get rid of him. The bird coming towards us at the edge of the sea is probably a skua. Click the image if you want a larger view.

Promenading at the water’s edge.

There is a lot of noise going on in these colonies and a lot of calling.

Taken out of context, this image would become almost abstract.

Quite crowded in places.

That’s a snowy sheathbill in front. Not the most attractive of birds if viewed close up but surviving here well enough.

I had left my camera bag on the beach while taking off with a few cameras and lenses. I returned to find it was being guarded. And he wasn’t too happy about giving up his nice comfortable pillow.

Blues on Broadbeach 2017

Jun2

Broadbeach, Gold Coast, Queensland, May 2017.
.

Briefly interrupting the stream of posts on South Georgia for a post on a Blues Festival….

I photographed a wedding for some friends and they shouted me and my partner Jools a weekend away at the Blues on Broadbeach Festival (though Jools was unable to come).

The Turner Brown Band was one of the highlights of the festival. Dom Turner has been an eminent player on the Australian Blues scene for decades and he brought Nikki Brown and the Browns back from Ohio to play with him in Australia. Friday was a day of torrential rain and they were moved inside to a small café. I was lucky to be in early and be able to get up front. Raw rollicking energy plus expert musicianship.

This is Mojo Webb, whom I hadn’t seen for many years, with the rain thundering down outside the tent.

I ducked back to the flat for some reason and this is the view from the corridor near the lift, in the pouring rain.

Fortunately we had (free) tickets to Russell Morris, who has been around since the 60s but who has reinvented himself in the last few years with a series of great albums. Almost all other gigs were cancelled from 7:30pm but we were able to relax in a huge concert hall with 2,000 other people. This is taken from a long way back.

Ezra Lee (playing with his band), still going in a pub late on Friday night.

The next morning, this is Craig Bracken and Hal Tupaea of the Flaming Mudcats, from Auckland New Zealand. A great band previously unknown to me (though I have often seen Hal playing bass for Ray Beadle).

Gloria Brown, Turner Brown Band. Different day, different venue.

Louie Shelton Bluesband. Louie, from USA but living in the Gold Coast, has played as session musician for many eminent rock bands over the years.

Tomcat Playground, from Canberra and Sydney. A very familiar band but always great.

Peta Lee, with the rhythm and blues band The Vibrolators, from Western Australia.

Kevin Borich.

The big event on Saturday night was the Are You Experienced 50th Anniversary Concert, with a succession of maestro Australian guitarists. (This and following three images). It was played from a marquee at the end of a road with a huge crowd on the road so it was difficult to get close. These images were taken at as much as 600mm equivalent and may be further cropped.

Harts.

Jimi Hocking.

The 50th Anniversary stage near the climax of the concert.

Next morning I went to have breakfast at a café with enticing music issuing forth. This is the James Street Preachers.

Shane Pacey Band.

A block away from the skyscraper zone, here is the beach and it is now a fine day.

Little Billie.

Al Britten, playing with Wards Xpress.

Wards Xpress, at the climax of a number.

Darren Jack, whom I have often seen at festivals, playing in a small crowded venue with an excellent band.

Ian Moss, the big act to provide a crescendo for Sunday.

I wasn’t official photographer so I had no need to try to cover all bands. However, this festival showed me that my Fuji equipment lags behind my Nikon equipment for this purpose, mainly for autofocus. Especially at 12,800ISO, it could take several seconds to find focus and focus was not always precise. I still got good shots but missed more than usual.

Phil Barlow of Phil Barlow and the Wolf, playing in a small bar in the dying hours of the festival.

…

There are links to many more images from Broadbeach 2017 on the Other Blues Festivals page.

Alternatively, there is the direct link in JAlbum (with overview images and images by band organised by folder).

For other images of a particular band I may have taken since 2006, see the Musicians and Bands Page, which lists links alphabetically by band.

Godthol

May27

12th November 2015. Godthol, South Georgia.

(Map of journey . . . (5. Godthol)).

From Grytviken, we sailed south along the coast towards a small harbour called Godthol. The first three images are views of icebergs and the shore along the way.

A recently wounded bull fur seal, encountered just after disembarking from the zodiac.

It was Spring and at many places along the coast, male fur seals were fiercely defending territory while they awaited the arrival of the females.

This is a young fur seal. You had to be careful walking though the knee-high tussocks by the beach, so as not to stumble into a fur seal.

Not so much of a problem asleep in the open, though.

Here Roy Mangersnes is having a close encounter with a female elephant seal. Elephant seals are not a problem in the same way as fur seals.

Gentoo penguin.

Most of our party headed off over the hills seeking nesting birds, possibly albatrosses, I don’t remember. I stayed at the beach which turned out to be fortunate. I managed to score a zodiac ride in the bay with just a few others, as the approaching sunset cast a glow in the water, partly reflected off the yellow grasses on the hills.

Fur seal and elephant seal.

Elephant seal.

Antarctic tern …

… diving for small fish (or having just dived in this case).

Elephant seal.

And this is a South Georgia Cormorant, very similar to the King Cormorants we saw in the Falklands.

I took a whole series of these graceful birds swimming around and diving in the golden water.

Shaking off the water after a dive. You may need to click to a larger image to see it properly.

Down we go…

Fur seals.

Elephant seal.

Grytviken Part 2

May22

12th November 2015. Grytviken, South Georgia.

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

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.

Whalebones that have probably been there a very long time.

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

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.

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

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

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

… and past the decaying factories of death….

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

Still chained to the past…

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

Almost back where we started, now.

Waiting zodiacs, whale bones and dead ships.

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

Grytviken Part 1

May13

12th November 2015. Grytviken, South Georgia.

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

We are now approaching the great metropolis of Grytviken, in fact the only place in South Georgia where the population is greater than zero, not counting seals and penguins.

A closer view. A small number of British scientists live here, though Argentina briefly captured the place in the early eighties.

A king penguin was hanging around on shore, on the somewhat muddy ground.

I was not the only person to photograph him (or her).

These I believe are casings for the explosive heads of harpoons, fired from harpoon guns at the front of whaling ships.

This place is probably a paradise for scrap metal dealers, were they allowed to remove anything.

Grytviken was founded in 1904, initially as a Norwegian whaling station. It closed in 1965 when virtually all the whales were gone and in the intervening period processed 53,800 slaughtered whales.

Many relics of that period remain.

I would think that the purpose of this huge pile of massive chains was to haul whale carcasses ashore.

… though in this case, to anchor a ship.

Ancient machinery whose purpose probably doesn’t bear too much thinking about.

I went for a walk along the shore quite a way past the settlement.

There are also remains of various wharves….

I understand the road accident casualty rate is quite low on South Georgia, much lower than India for example (though actually they usually drive pretty slowly in India in my experience). For all I know, this may be the only vehicle on the island.

There are also a couple of old ships moored beside the bay.

This one is an old whaling ship.

You can see that the end of the harpoon does appear similar to the rusted sections we saw further above.

And finally, here are a few shots of rust and paint on the side of the ship.

Prion Island

May6

11th November 2015. Prion Island, South Georgia.

(Map of journey . . (3. Prion Island)).

From Salisbury Plain we sailed to nearby Prion Island on the afternoon of the same day. Based on the time stamps, the first two images were taken from the ship on the way there.

The reason we went there was the possibility of photographing wandering albatrosses and indeed, there was a chick on a nest and a few others further away.

When an adult, this bird may have a wingspan of up to 3.7 metres (12 ft), the largest for any bird.

This one isn’t flying anywhere yet but in due course it will fly huge distances, soaring on the air currents.

… but no reason not to try out the wings…

This on the other hand, is a giant petrel. Colouration and plumage are very different, and also the nostril case above the beak.

The others were concentrating on the birds (after all, most of them are specialist wildlife photographers) but I was also transfixed by the distant background.

The moody shapes in the distance presented a mysterious and changing tableau.

Salisbury Plain (Take 1)

Apr29

11th November 2015. Salisbury Bay, South Georgia.

Map of journey . (2. Salisbury Plain).

Our second landing was at Salisbury Plain, where we would return five days later. We arrived the previous evening but strong winds and rain prevented a landing then.

A skua in the right foreground. King penguins across the stream. South Georgia mountains in the distance.

Flipper of a whale. Probably a relic from the whaling days.

I was unable to detect any massive stone circles erected by the penguins. Perhaps I need to read more about Salisbury Plain.

It’s not just the penguins, the whole environment is magnificent.

Beach procession.

King penguins porpoising near the shore.

Penguin landing party.

Previously we have seen elephant seals. They are not to worry about too much unless you get between a couple of contesting males and they don’t move very fast except for short distances. These are fur seals though and a different matter. Males stake out a patch of beach as potential mating grounds and will attack if you get too close. They can move very fast, are very powerful and have sharp teeth. To be treated with caution.

Looks cuddly but don’t get too close….

Size of images

Most readers of this blog will be aware that you can click on an image to see a larger version. For some of the earliest posts in this blog the maximum dimension was I think 800 pixels. Most have been 1024 pixels. From this post I have increased it to 1900 pixels. This won’t make any difference if you are using a phone, but may be useful for those viewing the posts on PCs.