SOUTH GEORGIA BY SKIP NOVAK

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 Approaching South Georgia on Pelagic
 
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Where serious commitment is a priority for seaborne adventure travelers there is no better solution for testing yourself, your boat, as well as your fortunes than undertaking a voyage to the remote island of South Georgia. Here, a 100 mile spine of the Scotia Ridge breaks through a storm swept ocean in a paradise of lofty white spires and black rock, its rivers of ice tumbling into the sea, its rugged beaches alive with seals, penguins and albatross.

South Georgia exists in the minds of adventurers because it is a long way from anywhere. A rough sea passage is the only way to arrive - it has been spared an airstrip because it is impossible to build one.
 

The implications in setting out from 'somewhere' are impressive; 900 miles from Stanley in the Falkland Islands, or 1000 miles due east from the Beagle Channel and Cape Horn. And getting back can exact a high price to pay because it is a hard slog against the prevailing westerlies. Frankly, Cape Town, 3000 miles away to the northeast, is the softer option.

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Granted this all sounds pretty miserable, but not if high mountains and cold seas are your 'cup of tea,' where a modicum of stoicism goes a long way when rewards are anticipated. And in South Georgia, the rewards are many.

Blown off their intended tracks, a few explorers caught sight of the island through its usual mantle of cloud, spume and spray, but it was left to Captain Cook to unravel some of its mysteries. In 1775 during the end of his 2nd voyage his crew sailed close aboard the fjorded northeast coast and made the first landings on shore. 'South' Georgia was named for his northern King. Vessels of fortune followed in the wake of the naturalist’s reports and by the turn of the century the slaughter of the fur and elephant seal populations where well underway.

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There was little else to attract visitors to those blood stained shores and when the seal population declined to an unprofitable level in the late 19th century there was a brief respite - but not for long, because in Norway Svend Foyn had in 1872 invented the exploding harpoon and the cannon to propel it that bears his name. This became the missing cog in the machine that would quickly become 'industrialized whaling,' but also in a round about way it provided the opening chapter to the islands recorded history. The story of South Georgia is by and large a violent story of whales and men in Antarctic waters.

In 1905, after some years of 'exploratory whaling,' the whalers arrived on the island in force setting up permanent infrastructure in many of the sheltered bays. With British sovereignty established and administered by a magistrate, the whalers, who were largely Norwegian, operated under a license that allowed whale harvest, but in no way controlled the numbers taken. They systematically decimated the inshore stocks as quickly as their resources would allow, forcing the 'catching' to take place further afield off the coast. The 'factory ship' soon evolved for offshore operations that would eventually girdle the entire Southern Ocean.

During this century the scientific community began to study not only whales for commercial reasons, of which there were plentiful specimens to dissect, but also (to their credit) to gauge the affect of whaling on the other populations of marine mammals, fish and avifauna. Straddling the Antarctic Convergence South Georgia and its marine environs are textbook examples of the food chain pyramid: microscopic organisms feeding on upwelling nutrients forming the base - and the mighty whales balanced precariously on the top. By the time a consensus on whale quotas had been reached it was all too late.

Whaling stopped on South Georgia in the 1960's, not through any legislation, but only because there were so few whales to be taken from a shore based operation. So the creatures great and small who line the beaches and swim the coasts today are being given another rest, one hopes permanently, only to be disturbed occasionally by boatloads of old ladies and grey haired gentleman thankfully wielding cameras instead of guns and flensing knives.

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Climbing up from King Haakon Bay, Shackleton's landing place on South Georgia

MORE PHOTOS

The following slide shows open in pop ups and you will need flash player installed to view them.

Click image  to view a slide show of the Shackleton traverse in Nov 2006 showing ski randonne across S. georgia terrain

Click image  to view a slide show of the wildlife expedition in Oct 2007

 

References