Larsen Harbour to Iris Bay

No serenades by Weddell Seal soloists or choirs last night.  Three nights surrounded by Weddell Seals and only one night with their far ranging vocalizations.  As the sun cracked the horizon and rose into a clear morning sky I kept reminding myself how fortunate we were to have been in Larson Harbour that one night and heard the singing.  The wind was gusty and strong, that seems to be a given everywhere in these latitudes, and the sun was shining.  All in all it was a “glorious” morning to move up the coast toward Iris Bay, visit with a few icebergs, and stop at Coopers Bay along the way.

If one never landed on South Georgia but only navigated the coast they would be impressed and in awe of the rugged beauty of the jagged mountains, numerous white snow fields of the descending glaciers and the mysterious shrouded bits of coastline hidden in the crashing wave-generated mists of the ocean trying to consume the soaring cliffs.  I am always an observer of the passing scene.  I cannot take myself below decks to read or eat during these transits.  Even if I have seen a place six or seven times in the past it is never the same and my notes never make the observation that I have been here before and it is of “so-so” attractiveness.  Oh No!  The rougher the waves off the coast the more concentrated attention I give to the entire event.  Captain Jerome Poncet always insists we tie ourselves to something permanent and press on to the next goal.  I am an abstract painter by artistic choice and historic accomplishment, but toss me into the Southern Ocean and I find the agitation awakening a more basic orientation to the adventure of the a place.

We did not stop at Coopers Bay.  There was no life on the beach…no fur seals, no elephant seals, no penguins…truly nothing to suggest we would find something happening.  Jerome said we would sail on to Iris Bay where he was certain we would find a full and busy beach.  He also commented that there were two glaciers, the Twitcher and the Herz, which flowed into Iris Bay.  I had talked with him that my first motive to come to Antarctica many years ago was to collect visuals of ice as I was into making “Ice Paintings.”  We had talked about global warming and easily came to an agreement that global warming was probably more a case of climate change that had been going on since earth became habitable by many species predating mammals and human beings.  In South Georgia the glaciers provide a continuous affirmation that things are changing dramatically on the warming side of things in this age and the glaciers are one of best large scale graphic-expressions you can experience of this massive change.

The beach was crowded with female Elephant Seals, cows, and their pups.  There was very little room between these small duos.  Interspersed along the beach were individual male Elephant Seals, bulls, which I knew were the beach masters of each harem group.  I knew they each knew the limits of their particular territory and the cows they considered their responsibility but everyone was so closely packed I had no idea how they made these distinctions.

Many of the Elephant Seals cows were engaged in a behavior I had assumed for years to be a bull action:  bulls would form their enormous 16 to 18 foot long bodies into a “U” shape so that they can rock up and look around the surf-turf.  One cow after another would do this while I observed the crowded beach.  The cows were active in the defense of their small section of beach and their pup but their “C” rocking (I decided to call cow rocking “C” because it was less dramatic than the gigantic bull “U”) seemed to be a way of keeping themselves informed about who was in the vicinity or moving their way.  The cows were quite aggressive in nipping at other cows or pups that came within a meter or so of their square meter of beach.  Bulls on the other hand would “U” rock and then suddenly rear up on their lower third to an awesome 8-10 feet height.  Bulls would maintain this erect lookout as they peered around.  Sometimes they would see someone out of place, another bull, and off they would slither-charge up the beach toward the intruder.  I did not see any females leave their “C” rocking or for that matter rear-up to their much less commanding body length of 3 or 4 feet.  This was a very active beach with sufficient harem snatching and beach-master challenges to keep it in constant turmoil.

Behind the beach at the rock cliff face was a fresh water pond being refreshed by waterfalls from the snowcap further up the cliff.  Fresh water is a real magnet.  The pond had a solo bull Elephant Seal lounging in its clean water.  There was a pair of Pintail ducks swimming about.  Sheathbills and Skuas were bathing and drinking.  King Penguins seem to be particularly pleased to stand in fresh water everywhere and it was no different in this pond.  The sun was still shinning brightly and I was very warm as I sat and watched the activity.  Fortunately the strong winds of early morning had blown themselves out and it was just occasionally breezy…really quite pleasant.

Jerome called us back to the Golden Fleece in order to survey Iris Bay and the two glaciers more closely.  Both the Twitcher and the Herz Glacier had receded from flowing directly into the waters of the bay to sitting back on rocky tongues.  The Twitcher Glacier was much wider and it clearly broke into large vertical chunks as it receded.  The Herz Glacier appeared much narrower and steeper; it’s melting seemed to flow out of its base.  It was not hard to imagine that both glaciers in the not very distant past flowed together at the present waters edge and formed a much larger mass that extended further into the ocean, probably even gouging out the present Iris Bay.  The GPS maps showed much of this as being in the near past! 

Eventually Jerome decided on an anchorage out of the ocean winds but not too close to the beach.  He dropped the anchors. We enjoyed a good dinner and conversation about the area.  Then it was off to our bunks for a long nights sleep.

Revisiting South Georgia: Previous Blog : Blog 11 < > Next Block : Blog 13