Nick Coghlan

1916, Fortuna Bay #SouthGeorgia: Ernest Shackleton & his two companions, after unimaginable hardships following the crushing of the Endurance in Antarctic ice 1300 miles away, stood here & heard the early-morning whistle from Stromness whaling station. Help was finally at hand.

Adolescent Southern elephant seals hanging out together, Fortuna Bay, #SouthGeorgia. Their strategy to keep warm is not fur, but thick blubber; slow and passive on land (except when breeding...), they're fast in the water & can dive up to 2000m.

Once reduced to only a few hundred, 3.5m Antarctic fur seals (98% of the world's population) now make their home in #SouthGeorgia. They're inquisitive - bordering on aggressive - so it can be quite difficult to remain the required 5m away; a bite on the ankle is not recommended..

There's a massive iceberg grounded in Fortuna Bay, #SouthGeorgia. At the sound of a great roar, I turn: a chunk of the berg is calving. The King penguins are as startled as I am and flee in panic (Note: no penguins or humans were harmed!)

At #SouthGeorgia's cemetery are the graves of the legendary explorer Ernest Shackleton & his right-hand-man Frank Wilde. Also 🇦🇷 submariner Felix Artuso, taken prisoner by 🇬🇧 in the Falklands/Malvinas war, shot by 🇬🇧in what was later determined to be "a tragic misunderstanding."

The world's southernmost church (1913) - Grytviken, #SouthGeorgia. Carl Anton Larsen, the founder of the whaling station, was a devout Christian, the tough 🇳🇴/ 🇬🇧whalers much less so. Neither the church nor the adjoining library ever got much use; it was more popular as a cinema

At the abandoned whaling station of Grytviken, #SouthGeorgia, Antarctic fur seals loll around contendedly by a rusting whale-catcher. Between 1904 and 1966, 200,000 whales were slaughtered here and at subsidiary stations, by mainly🇳🇴 whalers under 🇬🇧 license.

In a full gale off #SouthGeorgia.

It's blowing 50-60 kts north of #SouthGeorgia, but we're surrounded by spouting whales. An Antarctic Blue Whale - the largest creature ever to have lived - surfaces beside us like a nuclear submarine. About 1500 remain, from a pre-whaling population of 250,000. What a spectacle!

5 - 10m penguins make #SouthGeorgia their home (depending on the season), of which one million are Kings. This is surely one of the greatest natural spectacles on earth (the population of humans is about 8 scientists in winter, 30 in summer.)

Antarctic fur seals were hunted to the brink of extinction. There are now 4m on #SouthGeorgia, but bird flu is a new threat; on some beaches there are many dead. Present since 2023, it's killed mainly seals, not so much birds. At least this means carrion for the Giant Petrels.

The easiest way of determining the sex of a King penguin is (seriously...) the worn patches on the lower back of the female 😉 Right Whale bay, #SouthGeorgia

Right Whale bay, #SouthGeorgia. The sealers who first sailed the Antarctic thought the brown furry creatures (L) they found were a separate species from the elegant King penguins (R). They are chick/adult. They called the chicks Oakum Boys after a wooden-boat caulking material

One of the most wonderful places on earth (David Attenborough's #!)

A gloomy afternoon as we land by the King Penguin colony at Right Whale bay, #SouthGeorgia. Hard to believe, but many of the penguins, who are moulting and unable to swim at this time, are standing in the stream so as to cool off (it's about 2deg C).

At #SouthGeorgia's Right Whale bay, Gentoo penguins take to the water. "Penguin" is from the Welsh "pen gwyn" (white head) but "Gentoo" is a mystery. Their Latin name - Pyboscelis Papua - is derived from a mistaken idea of Captain Cook's naturalist, that they came from Papua (!)

This prehistoric-looking monster is a Southern Giant Petrel, seen here munching on seal entrails at Right Whale bay, #SouthGeorgia. On account of their diet (carrion), they're known in the Falklands/Malvinas as "Stinkers". But they fly as beautifully as any albatross.

A rare leucistic (white morph) Antarctic fur seal snoozes on the beach at Right Whale bay, #SouthGeorgia. About one in 1000 seals are born with this genetic condition (not the same as albinism); they seem to survive well enough (now that seal hunting is not a thing...)

Squabbling Macaroni penguins at Right Whale Bay, #SouthGeorgia. The most numerous of all penguin species (total pop about 18m), this island is their main home. The name is derived from a 1770s' fashion style adopted by foppish, androgynous men in England (!)

Our first stop on the island of South Georgia (South Atlantic): King penguins and elephant seals enjoying a moult together, Right Whale Bay.

That blue is not sky, it's ice. We spend half a day cruising along the S face of the world's largest iceberg - A23a (named/tracked by NASA). It's the size of Greater London (4000 sq km). Calved from the Filchner/Ronne ice shelf in 1986 and still moving, but starting to break up.

We're en route from the Beagle Channel to the 🇬🇧 dependency of South Georgia, deep in the South Atlantic. Seabirds love to follow the ship (its wake stirs squid to the surface...) and among many is this Wandering Albatross, with its wingspan of 3.5m (the largest of any bird)

We're leaving Ushuaia, at the southern tip of Argentina, for a 4-week expedition cruise deep into the remote and rarely visited Weddell Sea (Antarctica) - in the wake of the legendary Ernest Shackleton. Stay tuned for penguins, whales - and lots of ice....

Coming soon!

It's #InternationalPolarBearDay! Two friendly (?) 🇨🇦s send greetings from Coningham Bay, Prince of Wales Island, Nunavut (we interrupted them eating a beluga...)

📚💙In fragile #SouthSudan, the factors and personalities that tore the country apart in 2013-15 are still in play. There's no recovery in sight. Now out in softback, an outsider's first-hand account of how it began, from all the usual outlets & www.mqup.ca/Books/C/Coll...

📚💙 Starting at 07:30m of this podcast from San Francisco's top #sailing mag, Latitude 38, Chapter Fifty of Under Wide and Starry Skies - featuring one of today's seas less travelled: #Venezuela. www.latitude38.com/lectronic/po...

📚💙Coming up next week in Vancouver BC 🇨🇦- Weds January 14, 19:00: Fifty #Sailing Destinations in Seas Less Travelled. Photo: perhaps the least travelled sea of all, these days? Isla la Tortuga, #Venezuela. www.bluewatercruising.org/events/Event...

With #Venezuela dominating the news, I can't help recalling happier times and one of the most wonderful experiences of our travels: three days by motorised dugout to the foot of Angel Falls (the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall). This was our first glimpse.

Evening at anchor - Glenthorne Passage, Prevost Island BC - with the sun setting over Saltspring.