Thanks to unexpectedly calm weather, we ended up spending an additional morning at South Georgia to visit King Haakon Bay in the north west of the island. This area faces the prevailing wind and is seldom visited due to high swell. It’s also the point on the island where, on May 10th, 1916, Shackleton’s team landed after navigating 800 miles of the Southern Ocean in one of the tenders from his doomed ship Endurance.
We landed near “Peggoty Camp” where the full party camped while Shackleton and two others undertook a 36 hour hike across the island to the Stromness whaling station to seek help. The site is, like everywhere we’ve visited on the island, unbelievably gorgeous with rugged, towering peaks interspersed with glaciers surrounding the entire bay. Briggs Glacier, seen here, terminates at the farthest end of the bay.
For the technically inclined...