Fortuna Bay South Georgia

Today at 5.30am we arrived at anchor off Stromness.  The keen hikers disembarked at 6 am for a 4 km walk to Shackleton’s waterfall. This walk retraces the last few kilometres of Shackleton’s amazing journey.  The non-hikers (George and others) disembarked at 7.30 am for a visit to the general area to view wildlife. Others, me included, took advantage of a sleep in but still had to be at breakfast by 8 as the dining room was closing shortly after.  I guess it had been open since 5.30 for the early risers!  

The lovely sunshine from yesterday has gone and it’s raining today.  The scenery as we travelled yesterday was breathtaking.  Just to see those magnificent glaciers and snowcapped mountains was worth the trip.  Dinner last night was delicious, probably my favourite menu so far.  We sat with two couples from Pt. Macquarie, Joan from Cairns and Betsy from SF.  There is a different selection of wines presented each night and last night’s were Italian and really nice but you can request Argentine, Chilean or French varieties if preferred.  

The weather is still very iffy and we’ve moved back to Fortuna Bay, hoping to be able to land as there’s another large penguin colony here.  The scout boats are out searching for a suitable landing site.  Update: just had an announcement that the excursion is definitely off, they found a spot to land but the winds on board the ship are fierce and unsafe for disembarking etc.  So, we’ll be moving along and will find a suitable sheltered cove to spend the night and then make tracks tomorrow towards South Sandwich Islands. The unpredictability of this cruise is fascinating, never a dull moment.  There will now be two lectures this afternoon and another couple has a pack of cards so we might have a game of 500!  Then the bar will be open of course so we won’t be bored!!!