Sunday 13th March; 14th day at sea

A nice bright sunny day with a relatively smooth sea which made travelling on open water a pleasure. The morning featured a talk from Howard Pearce who talked about the government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It’s mostly regulating tourism, fishing, and looking after the environment, historical and natural, of the islands. Rather encouragingly I thought, he asked us for our opinions – on what to do with the abandoned whaling stations, the reindeer (they’re not native to the island) etc. The other talks of the day were nowhere near as interesting. One thing the Governor/Commissioner publicised was a charity which is being set up to try and look after South Georgia; they’ve got links in Norway, where the whaling industry was based. Curiously, Salveson’s in Edinburgh, who ran Stromness, and bought all the stations from their Norwegian owners a few years ago don’t appear to be contributing anything.

The only other highlights were a couple of whale chases. Pilot Whales and Hour-Glass dolphins in the morning and Fin Whales in the afternoon.