“In the darkening twilight I saw a star rise gem-like over the bay,”- Ernest Shackleton.
A few hours after Shackleton wrote that sentence in his diary, the Boss, as he was known to his men, died in Grytviken.
Today we visited the old whaling station, museum, post office, and graveyard, in Grytviken. As we wandered through the rusted buildings and vast array of machinery and equipment, we imagined what life must have been like in this bustling whaling station. Then we visited the wonderful museum which helped bring to life the history of this location, as well as the rest of the island.
In the afternoon, the ship relocated to St. Andrews Bay where we landed on the sandy beach. Just a few yards away there was the first of many groups of elephant seals with their pups, many nursing on the rich milk produced by their moms. The bulls regularly bellowed to ward off possible threats.
Along the way we passed thousands of king penguins in the process of molting. We were left speechless at the scene before our eyes; tens of thousands of Oakum Boys with adults interspersed. We were witnessing one of the great wildlife spectacles to be seen anywhere. There are no words or images that can describe such magnificence.
