It is a looooong way to the island of South Georgia, even from the Falkland Islands. We spent a full day at sea sailing from Ushuaia Argentina to the Falklands, then two full days at sea sailing from the Falklands to South Georgia… and then reversed that trip on return.
Fortunately, our time at sea was not in the least bit boring! And, perhaps surprisingly, there were many things to photograph along the way. Read on!
We left the Falklands a day ahead of schedule. Why? Because the ship’s crew and the expedition leaders kept a close eye on the weather and ocean conditions, and saw poor weather heading our way – so we postponed some of our planned stops in the Falklands (with a plan to catch them on the trip homeward) so we could sail east and avoid the incoming storm. As it turned out, this was a good move! We left behind the crummy weather, and on return we had fantastic weather for our visit to the western isles in the Falklands.
The Endurance has many decks that provide an excellent vantage point for viewing seabirds – whether passing by or trailing the ship. I spent many hours attempting to capture photographs of these large and incredibly agile birds, including several variety of albatross and giant petrel.
One day we spotted hourglass dolphins surfing the waves at the bow of the ship!
While at sea the expedition staff offered numerous interesting lectures explaining the Antarctic circumpolar current, the Life of a Snowflake, Science on South Georgia, Krill fisheries, Threats to Seabirds, Exploiting/Protecting the World’s largest ocean, the Falklands War, and several presentations from National Geographic Photographer Michael Meldon.
naturalist Maya Santangelo presenting a lecture about seals
On the way to South Georgia we passed the an outlier islet known as Shag Rocks: literally, a set of five sea-tossed rocks frequented by hundreds of shag (a type of cormorants). Check out this brief video. Here we also caught our first glimpse of an iceberg, slowly meandering across the southern ocean.
Take a look at this gallery of photos from our six days at sea – one day to the Falklands, two days to South Georgia, two days back from South Georgia, and one day back from the Falklands.
David Kotz 