After leaving Bird Island last Monday, we headed east along the north coast of mainland South Georgia. The ship is doing a round of all of the island stations, resupplying them for the winter and removing waste and cargo, and all of the summer staff. It will then take us all back to the Falklands so we can fly home. Although the ship does a lot of scientific work, on this journey it’s role is mostly logistics.
After a short detour to see the whaling stations last Monday we then continued along to Grytviken. At Grytviken there is another BAS research station (King Edward Point), Grytviken whaling station, a museum, Shackleton’s grave and memorial cross. It is a popular stop for the cruise ships that come down to South Georgia and two have popped in briefly to have a look around while we have been here. We have been exceedingly privileged to spend a week moored here, and have been out and about each day exploring the mountains. The scenery is spectacular and the weather has been dramatic and beautiful. The bonus time here has come from the fact that spare time has to be built into the ships schedule to account for days lost to unpredictable weather or unforeseen issues- at present we are nicely on schedule as Bird Island took less time than planned. Here are a few pictures of our adventures.
The SDA moored at King Edward Point with the whaling station behind…
A visiting cruise ship…
Grytviken whaling station…
A whaling ship…
The whalers church and library…
I’ll put a second batch of pictures from Grytviken on here shortly. Yesterday we set sail for the South Orkney Islands, to shut down the research station at Signy Island for the winter, so we are now at sea. We are due to arrive at Signy on 28th March.
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