Husvik Harbour, South Georgia - 29 November 2007
by Kate Laird

54 : 11 South 036 : 42 West

It's been very busy, so I haven't written. Yesterday we had a day ashore at Ocean Harbour, and then, after a late lunch, headed back to Cobbler's Cove. We had a splendid afternoon in Cobbler's Cove - another full day, it felt like! And then this am, we were up at 6, on to Grytviken for a day stop, and now it is 9 pm, and we're motoring towards Husvik...so lots of places in the last few days.

Seal in Cobbler's Cove.

In Ocean, I was pleased to see three pups with cows, so presumably one of them was the lost pup of the day before. It was surprising to see three nurslings in a place full of weanies...we haven't seen nurslings for a while anywhere else.

The big change overnight in Ocean was seeing some reindeer calves.

Anna didn't feel like going ashore in the morning, so she stayed behind and "assisted" Hamish with a fuel filter change. Helen and I went for a walk and watched weanies practicing swimming in the rivers and some yearlings holding their breath for impressive amounts of time (adults can hold their breath for two hours, so it probably wasn't impressive for an elephant seal, but it impressed us.) "Weanies are almost like different species," said Helen. We watched one leave her river and then hump up to another, dry, weanie and try to cuddle up to it. The sqwacks of protest from the dry weanie were delightful to watch. "It's saying ick! You're wet! get away from me!" said Helen.

We had lunch and then motored through various inside passages to Cobbler's Cove. We all poured ashore off the boat, as the light was perfect, and although we'd been there before it had been snowing and grey. Hamish, Helen and Anna and I had a wonderful anniversary afternoon on a cliff top. Helen and Anna were playing with stones acting as baby fur seals and Hamish was having a fine time trying to capture light mantled sooty albatrosses on his camera. I fell asleep! It was a gorgeous spot, with the boat anchored behind us and the light mantled sooties flying right over head (so were skuas and gulls, but is hard to pay attention to other birds when there are light mantled sooties around).

Light mantled sooty albatross.

Down below in the sea, we could see gentoos swimming in the clear water, and in the evening, they lined up like commuters walking along the rocks back to their rookery high in on the hill. On the beach, the first four fur seal pups were nursing.

We had peach cobbler for dessert to celebrate Cobbler's Cove.

We expected this morning to be a thrash to Grytviken, but it was quite mild, and we arrived alongside the first cruising boats of the season - Sol (cruising friends we'd first met in Greenland) and Northern Light whom we'd just met once before. We tied alongside and Helen and Anna disappeared onto Sol to visit and "assist" Kirsten in baking a cake for tea. Hamish and I took on water, did laundry, an oil change, and many of our number did last minute Christmas shopping. It was a working visit.

Since we were last in Grytviken, the snow has melted, and a team of construction workers has arrived from the UK to put in a hydro electric plant at Grytviken. The aim is admirable ... once on hydroelectric, they will no longer have to import fuel to run generators at Grytviken and KEP, but at the moment, Grytviken looks and sounds like a building site ... a bit too much civilization for our last days in South Georgia, so we elected not to spend the night.

After tea with Sol, Northern Light, and Kirsten's delicious cake, we took off for Husvik. We just missed Golden Fleece, who were coming in for the night, but we may meet them farther on. We motor sailed to Husvik, where we found Pelagic Australis and Abel Tasman.

Shortly after we arrived, Jess, the mate on Pelagic Australis, called up on the VHF to invite Helen and Anna over to bake birthday cake for one of their guests this morning.

We didn't have dinner until 10 pm, with all the moving about, but it was worth it to wake up this morning in the sunshine in Husvik, to the sound of seals grunting, rather than the sounds of JCBs transporting ton bags of gravel about. The wind shifted early in the morning, giving us a view of mountains to hike and glacial valleys and hiding the whaling station behind the mast.

Ocean swell at the base of the cliff.

For more about Seal see http://www.expeditionsail.com.