There are definitely worse places to be left in than Cumberland Bay, South Georgia and although we were all itching to make it to Bird Island, I was also keen to take advantage of being back in Cumberland Bay. Given its location on the Leigh side of South Georgia, the weather is much kinder to Kind Edward Point than Bird Island, so I made sure to take advantage of the clear blue skies during the day and night.
The travel limit at this station is huge and this means there are always hills to climb; we headed up Mount Duse equipped with crampons and ice axes (which we didn’t actually use) attempting to get a view of Cumberland Bay from above.
Unfortunately, as you can see from the photo, the visibility wasn’t great on Duse but it improved for visits to my old study colonies at Maiviken, which in my humble opinion is one of the best places in the world.
Another easy hike from base is along to Penguin River, which is always a good place to catch up with Light Mantled Albatross
One thing I won’t see a huge amount of on Bird Island is Elephant Seals. So I was keen to spend a little time with these beautiful beasts. So cute and useless when they’re born, they triple in weight in just three weeks by which time they are left by their mothers and become weaners, which are equally cute and useless – just a little fatter!
Eventually they will grow into 800kg females or 4 tonne males and return in their thousands to South Georgia to breed. The males will be 50% fat in optimal condition and spend nine months a year at sea-diving to 2400+m in search of their favourite food, squid.
Even in sunny Cumberland Bay, it’s never too long before the next blizzard or snow fall.
One final Elephant Seal picture since I can’t imagine there will be many more for a while!
