Day 5 — February 28
At Sea / Elsehul, South Georgia  As the sun’s earliest light began to filter through the mid-ocean clouds and fog, we searched the mist for flying shapes. We were quite close to the isolated islets known as Shag Rocks, breeding ground to some 2,000 pairs of South Georgian shags. And though we couldn’t see the rocks themselves, their denizens appeared all around us: not only the shags, but also wandering and black-browed albatross, thin-billed prions, and a suite of other South Atlantic birds.
Shag Rocks are the harbingers of South Georgia on this course. In these smooth swells we would arrive later in the day. En route we heard from Conrad Field on Seals of the South, and from Peter on Birds of South Georgia.
At about 1730, with just enough light left to attempt a landing, we made our landfall at the head of a deep bay called Elsehul. A landing here is impossible earlier in the season because of the skirmish lines of aggressive fur seals that guard the beach. But by now the breeding is over, and the bulls have deserted their territories, leaving the beaches mainly occupied by hordes of pups. Through them we picked our way and began to climb.
Beyond the beach bluffs we found acres of tussock grass inundated by fur seals, whose population is currently exploding on the island. They had crushed most of the grass and churned the channels between tussocks into a slimy mud. Into this we ploughed. Those with the fortitude—and the balance—emerged on the other side near our goal: the cliff-edge nesting ground of the gray-headed albatross, certainly one of the most beautiful birds in the world.
On the way back to the ship, our Zodiacs took us to visit a colony of macaroni penguins, the punk rockers of the seabird world. As we stepped aboard the ship, the last light was fading from the sky.
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