Bait and fuel delivered. Our support ship has gone.

We off loaded fuel and bait at a little beach carved out of the 400ft cliffs in Antarctic bay. There were many hundreds of baby fur seals, there just sleeping, swimming and playing around, passing the time, the long days, waiting for their mothers to return heavy with fatty milk, from their sea feeding. A seal kindergarten.

On a roll, making best use of breaks in the generally harsh weather. The depot area in Fortuna bay was quickly done and the 3 helicopters were then parked up in the high ground behind the disused whaling station at Leith. Gentoo penguins had made this place their home, enjoying a lake created by the dam of the old whalers hydro power scheme. It was almost like a freestyle zoo or safari park but without fences and with totally tame animals. No fear of man whatsoever. Eden?

3 small helicopters nestling at the base of a ring of 1000ft high hills, glorious sunshine but the ever constant threat of sudden changes in the weather. Sure enough curly clouds twisting and spiralling off the edges of the sharp hilltops signalled a good chance of strong winds coming soon.


I try photographing all I can see around me in the vain hope I can record some essence of this place. High cliff walls, buttresses capped with snow, incredibly tame animals. The aroma of many animals assailing the nostrils. Feral calls of the seals echoing round the cliffs, the sound carried from the colony on the beach over a mile away.



Since 30th January I must have taken well over 1000 photos of this amazing journey. One or two photos are 'ok' in composition; the others simply record the scene. They are easy to check and keep or delete.

But how to capture the 'essence' I feel here? A mental landscape, a memory is easy; just look, listen and feel both sensually and imaginatively. But how to develop that mind photo so that someone else can get a taste, a feeling of what the experience was like. How can the almost overwhelming, monumental beauty and the naïve primitive inhabitants be encapsulated in a message?

It would be all to easy just to sit back and enjoy the experience and not even bother trying to convey a composition.

I guess my 24 colleagues here have each taken many more photos than me. Our group must have generated at least 25,000 images, this month alone, to remind themselves of this Island. I have seen some of their images; there are several talented photographers here. Even so they are keen to read the word pictures of my own experiences. I will keep on trying to capture the spirit of South Georgia as I feel it, in the slim chance that I can convey for my family and friends, in my very limited style, at least some of the enchantment, indeed madness, of South Georgia.


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