REMINISCENCES - A VISIT TO SOUTH GEORGIA

In May 1985 I was fortunate to be onboard HMS Diomede when we visited the Falklands and the island of South Georgia. This is an article I wrote at the time about the experience.

South Georgia was discovered by Europeans in 1675.

Captain James Cook in HMS Resolution made the first landing, survey and mapping; in 1775 he took possession for Britain and named it Isle of Georgia after King George III. It is about 800 miles east-south-east of the Falklands and covers an area of 1450 square miles. It is rugged, mountainous and an inhospitable island which, for almost the whole year, is covered in deep snow with many glaciers (the glaciers move eighteen feet in a day, where Norwegian glaciers move that distance in a year!) It is virtually impossible for movement on foot beyond the immediate vicinity of the long-abandoned whaling stations of Grytviken, Leith, Stromness, Husvik and Prince Olav. The scenery is spectacular and the many glaciers which come right down to the sea are a photographer’s dream, with remarkable sunsets adding both colour and beauty. The weather, however, remains a permanent enemy, with gale force winds and complete white-outs occurring frequently, unpredictably and alarmingly quickly – as SAS troops discovered during an attempt to retake the island in April 1982.

The population used to comprise only the staff of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) station at King Edward Point, numbering about twelve in winter and twenty-two in summer. There is also a small BAS team of three biologists and a technician on Bird Island, situated off the north-western corner of South Georgia.

Sealing started in 1790 and was actively pursued between 1795 and 1802 and again between 1814 and 1820. Captain James Weddell estimated in 1825 the total number of skins taken from South Georgia was not less than 1.25 million and the quantity of elephant seal oil weighed in at 20,000 tons. Whaling began in the twentieth century and the first shore factory was opened by C A Larsen in 1903. In 1946-47, three companies operating twenty whalers caught 2,550 whales, but by 1961 only Salvesens and Albion Star Ltd were left; they were all gone by 1963, although the Japanese operated briefly from 1963 to 1965.

An abundance of wildlife can be found there. The elephant seals suffer from acute halitosis whilst the fur seals are treacherous and to be avoided; one bit off the calf of an American tourist... The whaling stations were abandoned so promptly that when the Navy went in afterwards everywhere was very evocative of the Mary celeste. Now, sadly, vandalism has taken its toll, mainly done by merchant ship crews of all nationalities. That briefly was the background to South Georgia. The ship was scheduled to visit there in May, and we were all anticipating the event.

We arrived at mid-day, slowly approaching Grytviken, a small rust-laden enclave with a backdrop of scree slopes and mountains. In the bay was the tanker Scottish Eagle, an enormous ship that dwarfed us but in its turn was made small by the magnificent scenery. The sea approach was mottled with thin pack ice to add further contrast. Beyond, to our left, was the wide forty-foot terminal moraine of a glacier actually debouching into the blue-tinted sea. The sky was azure, the mountain peaks white.

That afternoon personnel were landed to walk around. I went ashore in the boat the following day, in rain, but wearing a survival suit which kept me and my clothes dry. These suits were de rigueur for if the boat capsized or someone fell overboard, life expectancy sans suit could be counted in minutes if not seconds. A two-mile walk followed, around the shoreline to see attractive marshland with stagnant pools between tussock grass; here we found some seals wallowing in a pond, a couple of elephant seals and a solitary king penguin sitting on its nest and determined not to be moved for anyone: the bird was much photographed. Along the shore we met another smaller Gentoo penguin and could hear the surf lashing against the shingle, the shoreline more like a giant’s discarded bag of marbles, the rounded smoothed rocks were so large and streaked with various shades. The retreating surf moved the pebbles so it sounded like distant gunfire. All along the shore was scattered whalebone, some curved pieces all of seven-foot in length. Seaweed was scattered over the pebbles, some looking like beached squid, so solid and glistening, with tentacles, as if only recently bereft of life.

On the hillside, too far for us to reach in the time allotted, lay the crashed Argentinian helicopter shot down by Royal Marines; another group from the ship found its hydraulics and engine were in almost immaculate condition, though the body of the craft was riddles with bullet holes. Tucked under a hill just outside the station, at Hope Point, was the cemetery, where Shackleton was buried on 5 January 1922; also interred here, the Argentinian young man who died in the submarine, Santa Fé. Above, on the slopes, a large stone memorial cross to Shackleton which can be seen on entering the bay. The whaling station itself boasts a wooden church which was dismantled in Norway (1913) and shipped here and re-sited; it is presently being restored, and though spartan-looking inside is in very good condition, which is more than can be said for the Kino in front of the church – the cinema (dating from about 1903) has collapsed, its roof in the stalls. Walking through the ghostly whaling station was most interesting; happily, the rain stopped and the return trip to the ship was marginally more comfortable.

Two days later eight of us were scheduled to be landed to tidy up the whalers’ library in Leith, a station just round the point from Stromness Bay. For a short while it was touch and go as the weather had deteriorated and the sea was a little lumpy. Suitably attired in survival suits again, we were taken in two groups to the jetty of Leith whaling station with all our gear in the whaler boat; watching the forward party land on the jetty in their bright orange suits, it was like observing a decontamination team investigating a disaster area in a sci-fi movie.

Meanwhile the ship floated with minimal engine turning and could not have been more than twenty feet off the sheer scree slopes of Leith harbour. Once we were deposited, the boat returned and the ship left, turning the point out of sight to anchor in Stromness Bay for the day and night, scheduled to return for us the next day at 3pm. We had brought ashore extra rations should the weather preclude our recovery on schedule).

Once ashore, we carried our gear along the jetty to shelter, a derelict warehouse, passing on either side of us on the jetty single rows of metal machinery – all positioned ready for removal by Argentinian scrap metal merchants, for it was here that it had all begun in 1982.

We divested ourselves of our survival suits as they are not comfortable for any length of time, then set off to try to find adequate shelter to stay overnight. Not one building possessed a room that had not been wantonly vandalised; the majority of windows were broken or cracked, the contents of drawers were strewn over the floors. One three-storey building was clearly a grocery warehouse; it still contained boxes of toilet rolls, lifeboat first-aid tins, evidence of rats and lots more devastation. A small office sported the remains of a whale tote board, with the total whales killed, and stationery for shipping. Upstairs I found some hardback books on the floor, though as yet no library.

We circled back the way we had come and encountered armed soldiers in combat gear, faces blackened; they were from nearby Stromness, giving the area a once-over. Happily, they had a safe-house which we could use overnight. In most places there are situated buildings converted into safe-houses, especially for anyone who has become stranded due to the capricious weather; they are stocked with food and the means to heat food and body. Here, too, the windows had been shattered; the windows of the rooms upstairs had been boarded up. The downstairs rooms were in a bad state; one contained a piano which only possessed eight keys and no sound could be forced from its depths. Upstairs, two of our company having repaired the banister rails, we found the kitchen, with gas rings attached to gas cylinders stored outside. The rooms contained beds, two each, with mattresses and curtains and there were a few candles too. One room possessed a long table and chairs where we could eat comfortably.

After a snack, then, we set off for the glacier beyond.

On our way I located the library in an accommodation block on the second floor; it was the only room which had no visible leaks from the roof, but it was a sorry sight. In the passageway were books strewn all over, mostly soggy and trampled underfoot; inside, the same dismal picture, the books and library cards covering the floor to a depth of about ten inches. Yet still over half the shelves had books on them. We would return to begin the tidying up and repairs.

The weather was kind, the sky clear and the sun shining. We could walk with our hands ungloved and not feel the cold. First, we climbed tussock-clogged hills which ascended to ragged slate-like hills and then we could view the end of the valley or bay – like an enormous natural amphitheatre, on all sides scree rising to snowline and glacier. Dotted about were pools and ponds, presumably from the meltwater. We walked on, the hills on the way were moss-covered, and very spongy underfoot, and espied reindeer, which had been imported many years back to vary the fishy diet and had survived after the whalers had left. They were very timid, and ran off before we could get close enough to photograph them. They are regularly culled by the Army otherwise their numbers would overgraze the limited food-source.

The floor of the natural amphitheatre was like large cinders, heaped up in undulating waves, interspersed with rivulets of ice-cold water and sparse tussocks of grass.

One moment there was the distant murmur of the furthest glacier’s meltwater waterfall, when suddenly the babbling of icy streams grew loud. The scree revealed where the previous winter’s glacier must have gouged out the stones; now melting ice slowed along these small canyons. I climbed to the moraine of the glacier and it was solid ice, transparent and ringed blue.

We spent some time climbing up the side of the glacier, inside and under it too, over rocks that cascaded meltwater. The reflected light inside the glacier was bright. On our way back we followed the deer along the valley, not the way we had come, and while we were unable to get close to them we encountered penguins amid grass tussocks; all of them having just returned from a dip in the sea about two miles off. Further down, along the beach, was a group of seals. And on the shingle dunes we came across an enormous elephant seal, moulting; he was unprepossessing and foul.

A short climb to the headland where a signal gun pointed into the bay. And then back to work on the library and to eat.

That night three of us left the safe-house with torches and looked around the buildings. It was fascinating – and a little eerie – to walk through the abandoned station, with the wind blowing against loose corrugated iron and whistling in the rotting eaves. The night was clear. Thousands of stars were visible in the southern firmament, even the Milky Way and Orion. We found a vast variety of technical equipment, a lot of it cannibalised, but some still in its grease-paper packing. The whaling slipway was spooky at night and though no whales had been slaughtered and carved up there for many years, to my mind there still hovered an unwholesome aura about the place. While crediting the station for its ingenuity in production-line treatment of dead whales in order to waste nothing, it was grossly obscene. It seems fitting that the whales are no longer killed near here and that the machinery is in disuse, that Man has devastated the area that Man created; the naturally created features, such as the screes, mountains and glaciers are pure, unblemished, unspoiled by Man.

On return, we slept, to awaken in a chilly dawn. After tidying up and clearing away the mess in the library, we walked round the point to view the anchored ship in Stromness Bay; on the way we had to climb two cliffs with a few tussocks serving as handholds, for the way round the shoreline was impassable. Also on the way, near the four seals we’d seen yesterday, we encountered a pup seal that was small enough to be quite mobile and had big puppy-dog eyes; it flopped towards us; perhaps it was a trifle vain, since it wended its way towards whoever was pointing the camera. It was certainly unafraid.

We watched two young seals playing in the surf, unmindful of the elders or us. From this vantage point we could view the snow-clad mountains, probably the Arcady range. Then it was time to wend our way back down. Breaking off from the others, I descended past a fresh-tasting cool brook, spotted a reindeer hobbling among tumbledown boulders at the foot of a gigantic scree. A short while later I crested a slope and found myself no more than twenty feet from a herd of grazing reindeer, many resplendent with enormous antlers. We eyed each other for many frozen minutes, then they sauntered off. Later still, I came upon a rock penguin colony; dozens standing upright, motionless, facing the sun to warm or dry themselves. They quickly detected my presence and were reluctant to stay near me. Then it was time to get back.

After packing, we mustered on the jetty for the boat. Then over the radio we heard that the ship had changed its plans and would be staying another night; would we like to remain here too? We unhesitatingly gave the affirmative.

We spent the day strengthening and repairing the roof over the library and that night we set out in the dark with torches, across the marshland and up the hills, eventually splitting up and, surprisingly, I managed to navigate well enough to relocate the penguin colony. There were hundreds now, and they seemed to be attracted by the torchlight. A number of them actually stampeded towards me as I tried to photograph them: I managed a picture of my foot and a penguin’s wing that time. Then we left them to resume their interrupted sleep, heading back to the safe-house, collecting water from the stream on the way.

Next morning we woke to find a heavy frost had descended, the rust-coloured screes were all now silvery-white, lending a ghostly sheen to the surrounding land and dilapidated station. We were collected by boat. Snow fell heavily shortly afterwards; we had barely avoided being snowed in. Large snowflakes, blanketing the area, with gulls and other birds, including cormorants, flying zigzag, and a solitary penguin swimming close by.

It was the most memorable period in our forty-two weeks away from home.

***

Since 1985, changes have occurred.

In more eco-conscious times, the reindeer were considered a pest, damaging the island’s flora and other aspects of the ecosystem. So, in 2013 teams of Norwegian government shooters and reindeer herders culled all 3,500 reindeer on the island. The culled animals were frozen and taken to the Falkland Islands where they were sold to local residents and cruise ship operators.

And in 2018, after a lengthy extermination effort, the island was declared free of rats and other invasive rodents and as a result the number of South Georgia pipits, snowy sheathbills, South Georgia pintails and Wilson's storm petrels have increased.