Sun was just setting at Gold Harbour. The sun was slowly fading behind the mountains, casting a beautiful golden glow over Bertrab Glacier and the colony of King Penguins, which numbers about 50,000. This was on the small side, compared to other beaches like St. Andrews Bay and Salisbury plain, with 300,000 and 250,000 respectively. And while looking back at a 1.5 hour time lapse I also shot from this position, that giant male elephant seal barely moved from his position the whole time. The chaos and noise of the colony behind him and he never waked. While the other locations have more numbers of Kings, with Gold Harbour’s cliff faces and glaciers so close to us on the beach, it made for an intimate setting like no other. Gold Harbour, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Google Maps Location photo was taken from: 54°37'3.365" S 35°56'31.739" W
When you could find open space on the beachhead at St. Andrews Bay, not clogged up with elephant seals, you were greeted by gaggles of King Penguins like these, waddling along. Groups of ten to twenty would walk right up to you, look at you and then move on after realizing you aren’t a penguin. The largest colony of Kings in all of South Georgia at 300,000, for this 2 mile stretch of beach, they dotted the whole shoreline and then some. Go further inland and you are greeted by the bulk of the colony. Luckily we were there in November when it wasn’t the “hot” summer months. According to our expedition leaders, the smell of the penguin guano can get quite rank. St. Andrews Bay, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Google Maps Location photo was taken from: 54°26'8.681" S 36°11'16.631" W
After the sun set at Golden Harbour, the clouds were a beautiful purple and red, in the soft afterglow of twilight. While the majority of the Kings were huddled further up the beach at their colony, packs of a few like this were scattered and waddling amongst the shoreline. Add in some elephant seals, southern giant petrels and skuas, and you have your evening ocean view. Our trusty seafaring ship, the Vavilov, lay offshore, sending Zodiacs over to pick everyone up. You can barely make it out, but the small black dot behind it is one of the Zodiacs coming to shore, And while it looks closer that it is, an iceberg off in the distance, was one of the first we saw while in South Georgia. Gold Harbour, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Google Maps Location photo was taken from: 54°37'3.432" S 35°56'31.799" W
