With winds prevailing as high as 60 knots, we were not able to do a landing this first morning in South Georgia. Instead, our guests had a chance to learn more about glaciology by naturalist Andreas Madsen, followed by an introduction to what goes on behind the scenes on National Geographic Orion, led fondly under the auspices of hotel manager Tracy Greiner and chief engineer Vadym Pohorelov. Meanwhile, our expedition leader monitored the wind carefully and found the perfect opening for us to disembark. We lunched and afterward managed a clean and seamless landing on the South Georgian bank!
Cave Cove in King Haakon Bay was where Shackleton and his men first landed after their epic journey from Elephant Island. It was at Cave Cove where the rudder of James Caird (Shackleton’s vessel) was ripped off but managed to float back into the cove later, where they would repair the boat. From Cave Cove, they moved to Peggoty Bluff.
This bluff, where we ourselves landed, was where an exhausted crew of Shakelton’s made shelter by upturning James Caird in order to rest before three of the group’s six would embark on a scarcely charted route to the town Stromness on South Georgia’s eastern shore. They named their camp after the Peggotty family in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, who lived in home built from a boat.
As we followed the first footsteps of Shackleton, Crean, and Worsley’s journey toward the whaling station in the southeast, the guests had good chance to have stretch of their legs, after a couple of days at sea.
