Day 1-3 – 7-9 Nov 2015 We embarked MV Polar Pioneer in the afternoon 7 November and started our journey east toward South Georgia. In the first 3 days we were surrounded by ocean, which gave us great photo opportunities of seabirds like Grey-headed albatross, Southern giant petrel, Black-browed Albatross, Light-mantled albatross, Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross, White-chinned petrel, Cape Petrel, Antarctic Prion and Common diving-petrel.
Day 5 – 11 Nov 2015 Today we were happy to visit both Salisbury Plains and Prion Island. Prion Island have a breeding population of Wandering albatrosses, and one of the juveniles posed close to the boardwalk. Thousands of King penguins greeted us on the beach of Salisbury Plains, so we had a lot of birds, Antarctic fur seals and Elephant seals to photograph.
Day 6 – 12 Nov 2015 On every expedition to South Georgia we have to visit Grytviken, a former whaling settlement. Today the wildlife has taken over the "city" where terns are nesting in the wrecked ships and penguins are the only native pedestrians you can see in town. In the evening we visited another beach with Gentoo penguins, South Georgia shags and Elephant seals in great evening light.
Day 7 – 13 Nov 2015 We landed all guest on the beach of Gold Harbour BEFORE sunrise. With favourable weather conditions this turned out to be one of the best mornings ever in the history of WildPhoto Travel. Magic sunrise, snow-covered mountains and thousands of King penguins gave everyone plenty of photo opportunities. We also managed to land our photographers on a smaller beach for the sunset where we photographed more King penguins and Elephant seal puppies.
Day 8 – 14 Nov 2015 Another early morning for our photographers! King penguins at sunrise in St Andrews Bay is on many photographers wish list. We had some amazing hours at this beach with wildlife in great light conditions. In the afternoon we had a successful visit to a Macaroni penguin colony and for the evening we were blessed with some great photo opportunities of icebergs. What a day!
Day 9 – 15 Nov 2015 New day and new opportunities! For the third consecutive morning we managed to land all our photographers on the beach BEFORE sunrise. And what a sunrise we had this morning. King penguins and Elephant seals in great landscape and light conditions gave our group of photographers more amazing images on this expedition.
Day 10 – 16 Nov 2015 After 3 very early mornings we woke up to dark clouds and also more waves. "Bad" weather doesn't mean boring photography, and we got great opportunities photographing penguins entering the beach in the surfs. In the end we had to leave the beach when the wind picked up and gave us some real expedition weather.
Day 11 – 17 Nov 2015 This was the last full day in South Georgia with another beach landing with penguins and seals. Not the large numbers of wildlife that we had experienced and photographed the last days, but still plenty of photo opportunities. One albino fur sea pup was one of the highlight from this day.
It was a vey successful photo expedition to South Georgia 7-21 November 2015, especially with multiple early mornings on beaches covered with King penguins and seals. Mountains covered in snow also gave us some great landscape photography opportunities. Thanks to everyone who participated and made this trip memorable!
Let us know if you want to travel with WildPhoto Travel on a similar photo expedition to the South Georgia.
Text & photo: Ole J Liodden