Salisbury Plain
Our first landing at South Georgia is at Salisbury Plain, the site of a large King Penguin colony of 250,000 pairs. The forecast is for 8 degrees Celsius in the morning and 7 degrees in the afternoon. It’s overcast on our arrival with low grey clouds obscuring the upper parts of the Grace Glacier. A large group of kings greet Le Lyrial, and seem to be fascinated by this floating rock, pausing in big groups to look at the ship as they head to the colony.
Salisbury Plain is a distinctive location, easy to recognise with the triangular peak with the penguin colony extending up the mountain side. From a distance, there appear to be fewer penguins in residence in the higher reaches of the colony this year.
I am in the third group to land, when the conditions are still cloudy. The Grace Glacier is still receding, generating some murky sea water close to the beach, but also generating plenty of fresh water sources for the penguins, fur seals and occasional elephant seal. There are plenty of fat, well-fed parent penguins heading back to the colony and their chicks.
The colony is well-organised, with the penguins following an exit path from the colony down to the water’s edge by traversing a muddy fresh watercourse. If they are not already filthy from the colony and feeding their chicks, they are by the time they’ve crossed this muddy channel.
These three kings were in the middle of a discussion which suddenly turned violent, with an angry peck responded to with some flipper slapping.
There are definitely oakum boys, the brown fluffy chicks, in the midst of the colony, but there don’t appear to be as many as in past visits.
Ironically, once we are about to depart Salisbury Plain, the sun breaks through the clouds, and we end up with a sunny view of the beach, colony and the Grace Glacier.
The kings are still fascinated by the ship on our departure, and seem to be using the wake of the ship as a spa pool as we head for Fortuna Bay.
The final view of Salisbury Plain is a mostly blue sky day for this huge king penguin colony.
Fortuna Bay
The sunny weather persists as we arrive in Fortuna Bay, a short sail from Salisbury Plain. There is a smaller king penguin here located near one of the fingers of the Konig Glacier. My last visits here were in 2010 and 2012, when reindeer were still present. The cull of reindeer began in 2013, and the only sign of them now are the occasional skull and antlers.
There also four moulting Chinstrap penguins, and a few moulting Gentoos. It is also the only place I see a South Georgia pipit, the only songbird on the island, in the entire time we spend in South Georgia.
It’s about 1.2km to the penguin colony, with fur seal pups alternatively resting or trying to intimidate the red coated intruders to their territory.
The fur seal pups have adopted the flags marking the trail that the passengers are meant to follow as part of their territory. This involves sitting next to the flag and trying to chase whoever is passing by.
Fortuna Bay also has an active small waterfall with fresh water runoff from the glacier. This provides a useful stream and pond to play in. This pup attracted my attention by lying on the banks of the stream with its head in the water. It was not impressed by my laughter and promptly jumped out of the stream to try to chase me away.
Fur seals are excellent parents, nursing their pups for about a year. This mother and pup both look sleek and well-fed.
The highlight of Fortuna Bay though turns out not to be penguins, but rather a leucistic or blond morph fur seal pup, one of the blondest I’ve seen.
As we head for St Andrew’s Bay, a muted sunset sends us on our way.
