Graeme Ger Antarctic: Last day on South Georgia

5 Jan 2012. Overnight sail to Gold Harbour. 9am kitted up and into the Zodiacs for an easy ride in but snowing and colder today so well rugged up. Beach landing here is normally like Bell's surf beach but we have again been blessed with good conditions. This beach is full of King Penguins, fur seals and elephant seals. This is the biggest group of elephant seals we have seen and some of their wallows contained at least 20 of these huge animals lying all over each other. They are forever moving to get a better spot, fighting and roaring. They are just big fat seals. The bulls grow to 4.9M and 4 tonnes. The cows only 2.8M and 400-900 kg. They have cute faces but otherwise a bit scary. They did not seem to care about us unlike the nasty young fur seals. These were forever having ago at all of us at sometime but they were generally put off with enough arm waving and yelling. The King penguins once again were more than 100,000.

They were very friendly and if you sit down or stay still they would walk right up to you, particularly the young ones that were still in their brown coats or various stages of shedding.

I had one fully grown King come up to me while I was kneeling on the ground and he came up beside me to check me out. He was well inside my arm's reach and I could see every detail of his fur with all it's magnificant and bright colours. He stayed there checking me out for over a minute. It was a moment I hope I never forget, it was special. It became strange after a few hours in that we would just walk among all the fur seals, penguins and elephant seals with out realising just how close we were. They certainly had no concern with us they just went about their life as if we were not there.

Back on board for lunch and then at 3pm back into the gear for a non landing cruise in the zodiacs around Cooper Island, a strickly out of band non landing island. Heaps of Geentoo penguins, a fair number of chin strap, an odd king and the elusive but highly abundant Macaroni. They are the largest group on South Georgia but are like to live on the most difficult rock walls that are mostly on the west side of the island. So it was great to see a few, three together on the waters edge and we had the zodiac almost on the beach so great view of them.

Back on board at 4.30 and sail to Drygalski Fjord our last stop on South Georgia. Trip up the Fjord was spectacular but visibility deteriorated and hence not great viewing. As we sat for dinner we past Cape Disappointment, named by Cook when he realised that this was an island after sailing down the east cost. He thought this was the major land mass of Antarctic.

It is also Cape Disappointment for us as this where we sail away from South Georgia which we have all enjoyed and will never forget.