Penguins

We stopped at St. Andrews bay and visited the largest King penguin colony in the world. The size of it was unbelievable. There are hundreds of thousands of penguins here. The place I took the photo below was very loud with penguin squawks, and it only shows a slice of the colony which wrapped around this point almost 360 degrees. Indeed, it did not smell good, but to be honest, penguin guano didn't smell that bad to me, fur seals were far, far worse smelling. Many people in the group did have big problems with the penguin smell, be warned if you visit here....

The next morning we got to Grytviken, the old Swedish whaling station. It operated from the late 1800s to the mid 1960s. This is the story: in the second half of the 19th century, there were almost no "right whales," what they call the particular slow swimming whale species that were hunted, in the northern hemisphere. They had been hunted to near extinction in the north. But, it was noticed that around Antarctica there was an abundance of whales.

In the bay at Grytviken it was recorded that ships would see hundreds of whales, in the bay alone. So it evolved that the industrial scale whale hunting would move to the remote Southern Hemisphere. And over the next 80 years they were hunted to near extinction. For most of the early years, the only thing that was used from the whales was the blubber, which was cooked into oil. The rest of the carcass was dumped into the bay.

Whether you agree with hunting animals or not, there is nothing right about doing it on an industrial scale for a single product.

Anyway, this is where Shackleton is buried and so we did a toast at his grave with readings from his writings. Everyone got a shot of good scotch, and we did a toast. At 9 am, by the way. He was known as "the boss" long before Springsteen was born, and so that's what everyone was calling him.

By the way, the princess had been here the day before, visiting the science station so we got an earful of how stressful it was preparing an official meal and then a private "royal party" meal.

St. Andrews bay,  largest King penguin colony in the world (partial view)

Group toast to "the boss."