As Fram came closer to South Georgia the sea became calmer with only a little pitching and rolling. Our boat group would be the last to leave the ship. This meant that even when the landings had started we would have plenty of opportunity to get ready and to take pictures of the island.
There were no briefings planned for the morning so my plan was to go out on deck looking for sea birds and hopefully whales.
On Saturday March 4th, in the late afternoon we landed at one of the largest King penguin colonies at St Andrews Bay on South Georgia.
Albatross on the approach to South Georgia
After breakfast the expedition team announced that there were Wandering Albatrosses following the ship. At the stern I joined a group of photographers all watching the birds around the ship.
I was taking these images with a 400 mm lens with a 1.4x extender as the birds were following the ship from quite a way behind the stern.
Occasionally they came closer.
It was very cold and windy and as the morning passed the dark clouds behind the ship caught us up and it started to snow. This was the time to go inside to the Observation Lounge to watch from inside.
Arrival at South Georgia
When South Georgia first came into view through the mist I tried to take images from inside but as we came nearer, going back outside was the best option.
There were now lots of sea birds around the ship and we watched penguins in large groups swimming past. The hail storm that came suddenly was intense and soon parts of the deck had little drifts of the hail stones.
Outside it was very cold.
We passed a Russian scientific research vessel at anchor as we neared St Andrews Bay.
This was on a journey around Antarctica collecting samples and had scientists of many nationalities on board.
