South Georgia

South Georgia has, after its own fashion, given us a warm welcome!
Surely, we have had showers of snow and katabastic wind-attacks, but
every beach landing so far has been smooth, and we've had more sunshine
than clouds. The experiences will be etched on my mind forever. The
wandering albatross and its half-grown offspring at Prion Island. The
king penguins, elephant seals and fur seals at Salisbury plains and St.
Andrew's bay, and the old ruins of the whaling station at Prince Olav
bay. At the latter we were not permitted on shore, however, because the
buildings are in such a condition that they may fold like a card house
over any visitor careless enough to just sneeze.

Not sure I'm able to put down a lot of words to describe these events
yet. They are all grand, both on geographical, emotional and
photographic scale. From the last 36 hours I have obtained about 20000
images. I haven't had time to do anything but to just store them on the
computer and make backups.

Oh, yes, and one more thing; geotagging the images by matching them with
the log from my little GPS unit. The job has just insinuated itself into
my workflow, and it seems like the most natural thing of the world to do
by now. It's just a few clicks to harvest the data from the GPS and
store it. Then another few clicks with GeoSetter to match the log with
the images. Works every time!

I have also experimented a little with the video functionality of K-7.
More on that later, when I begin to make heads and tails of it.

Further, I have also FINALLY got around to use a good-quality sound
recorder I bought 3 years ago. I have made recordings of the somewhat
obscene sounds of elephant seals, and the all together puzzling sounds
of the king penguins and their chicks.

To visit Grytviken was also quite an experience. The place is simple
enough to tour, there are only a few stops. Ernest Shackletons grave,
the whaling museum, the church, the old derelict buildings and stranded
ships from the whale industry, and the recently opened hydropower plant.
And the souvernir shop, of course, where I bought an obligatory "been
there" t-shirt and some christmas presents. The bill was paid by credit
card, which gave a certain feeling of paradox; being so far, far away
from anywhere else and yet pay with plastic money.

We still have one day left here before heading towards the Antarctic
Peninsula. The landing tomorrow will (most likely) be our only chance to
see Macaroni penguins. Fingers crossed it works out.