Elephant seal sex - South Georgia and Antarctica

Two juvenile elephant seals play fighting, getting practise for real fights for their hareems in future

Warning: this post contains explicit content some readers may find disturbing. 

But I'm sure you'll read on anyway.

So by the time we got to our final day in South Georgia, we were all pretty much maxed out on smelly penguins covered in shit, and slightly fed up with having growling fur seals chasing after us. We were definitely looking forward to heading down to the Peninsula to see more ice and other wildlife on offer there. Nevertheless, we still wanted to get the most out of our final landing on this beautiful island that had so far filled us with so many surprises and lasting memories.

South Georgia Day 5: Golden Harbour

What we went on to witness was certainly memorable, whether it was a beautiful sight is open to debate.

Golden Harbour was home to the second largest mixed penguin colony that we saw in South Georgia. Amongst the penguins were lots of juvenile fur seals that were too hormonal and wanted a fight every time something or someone went near them. Our walking sticks were definitely needed here. The main characters of this episode however, were the elephant seals.

Specifically two elephant seals, which we came across almost as soon as we landed. 

The larger one was a male juvenile, weighing in roughly 2-2.5 tonnes. The female was much smaller. Experience told us that females are generally smaller than the males, but this one was quite a lot smaller, at least half his size, presumably because she was also a lot younger.

Then, without any warning, before we (and she) realised what was happening, he climbed on top of her. Almost immediately she tried to escape and wriggle herself free. But he was too strong and too big. He pinned her down with his right flipper. She struggled a little, but there was nothing she could do.

For the several minutes that ensued, we watched, awestruck. There was nothing we could do either, except for taking photos and filming the whole event.

Once it was over, he fell to the ground with a thump, and she finally got away. Still in shock and fear, or fearing it would happen again, she quickly moved away from the pack and spent the rest of the afternoon isolated.

That was one of the cruellest moments of our expedition.

Antarctica Itinerary - Location Tracker

I've written a few posts about the ice, penguins and some practical information about the trip, but you might ask, how do they all fit in? Here's my South Georgia / Antarctica itinerary:

February
8th - day trip to Volunteer Point, north eastern tip of the Falklands.

9th - 13th - Boarded the Golden Fleece. Sailing day and night from the Falklands to South Georgia. Spent Chinese New Year (10th) at sea - first time in my life I didn't celebrate it in the slightest as I was too busy trying not to be sea sick. 

14th - first landing of the trip at Elsehul, where some of the group saw a live penguin being taken and literally ripped apart from a group of petrels. It was also the only one time we saw an albatross colony. Our second landing in the afternoon was at Prion Island, where we were ironically chased by baby fur seals along the only man-made walkway we encountered on the whole trip. I also saw a penguin with a gaping wound on its side; I was pretty sure it wouldn't survive to the next day.

15th - landed at Salisbury Plain in the morning. It was breathtaking, metaphorically and literally - I could smell the pink poo when we were still at sea. The biggest King colony in South Georgia, there were an estimated over 200,000 of them. Later on we passed Prince Olav Harbour, which is a derelict whaling station, and landed at Posession Bay, where we saw a male fur seal trying his luck with a female. She wouldn't have any of it.

16th - we woke up to what was arguably the most spectacular sight on the whole trip: a towering iceberg over 100m tall in the morning mist. Apparently given its size it was likely to have been broken off from the Ross icesheet over 10 years ago. After that we started at Fortuna Bay and trekked part of Shackleton's trail to Stromness Bay, which is also a derelict whaling station. Sliding down ice slopes was pretty good fun!

17th - we spent the whole day at Gryvitken, resting and refilling the fresh water tank. Gryvitken is about 1km from South Georgia's capital, King Edward Point. We visited the museum, sent a few postcards from the post office, and did some trekking - where we saw Ernest Shackleton's grave, jumped over some pretty feisty elephant seals, and saw the remains of a crash helicopter from the Falklands War. Eric also taught me some night photography techniques here.

18th - this was our last day in South Georgia. We first landed at Ocean Harbour where we saw the Beyard derelict ship, followed by seeing another large King penguin colony and a lot of aggressive fur seals at Golden Harbour. It got cold too, and we were hit with snow showers in the afternoon.

19th - 23rd - five days of sailing through the Scotia Sea was gruelling; I spent the first two days lying down to avoid sea sickness, despite 3 different types of anti sea sickness remedies. Minimal eating (no appetite) and minimal drinking (to avoid getting up for the toilet) were not pleasant. Otherwise, the days were spent on scrabble, card games, films and processing photos.

24th - to take a break from sailing, we landed at Elephant Island, where we saw glaciers collapsing into the sea. It was also our first encounter of chinstrap penguins, who were very loud, and a leopard seal, which went on to successfully hunt a penguin (which I didn't see). This was also where I successfully caught fish using reindeer meat as bait.

25th - another day of sailing

26th - officially set foot on Antarctica. Seeing leopard seals, humpback and minke whales up close to the boat at Cierva Cove was pretty cool, and very different from the penguins and fur seals I had been used to. Second landing was Enterprise Island, where we trekked up a hill but ran into a brief snow shower which looked like a white-out. This turned out to a fun afternoon with snow ball fighting and ending in a beautiful sunset and moonrise.

27th - I missed what would eventually become the only opportunity of taking sunrise shots in Antarctica. Eric's "sleep when you're dead" motto still resonates. We sailed to Spigot Peak, which we climbed just so we could slide down the ice slope. Having a BBQ afterwards was pretty awesome, especially with a glacier in the background. In between the sailing we also crash landed on a iceberg with some dopey crabeater seals. Afternoon was spent at Curverville Island, where we saw a lot of Gentoo penguins, some with very recently hatched chicks.

28th - it was a cold miserable day. I got wet from the Paradise Harbour landing, and lost my beanie hat on the way up to the top of the hill. I really liked that hat. At Port Lockroy we sent the last batch of postcards from Antarctica before the post box closed for 6 months. The small museum and gift shop were also a nice change from penguins, seals and whales.

March
1st - landing was not a priority today, as we spotted a small pod of killer whales, or orcas, in the morning and spent an hour or two chasing them. We then saw an iceberg breaking apart and flipping in the afternoon, arguably the most spectacular sight on the whole trip. We did land on Ronge Island just to complete the day. 

2nd - last day in the Peninsula, we visited Hunt Island where we hiked to the top of a ridge with incredible views. More humpbacks got up close and started showing off, whilst two groups of Gentoos jumped for their lives as our boat approached their iceberg. Two more landings in the afternoon: one on an iceberg where we took jumping shots; the final one was full of blue eyed cormorants. 

3rd - away from Antarctica we landed on Deception Island, which had a very large colony of chinstrip penguins (allegedly 120,000 pairs). The famous Sewing Needles stuck out of the water tall and high. Then landing at Whalers Bay was like landing on Mars. The volcanic island also offered geothermally heated sand and water - perfect to bathe it!

4th - to allow the storm to by-pass us, we spent another day at one of the South Shetland Islands - Half Moon Island and Edinburgh Hill.

5th - 8th - we crossed the infamous Drake Passage, but by now I was used to sailing in the rough sea, so the 8m swells didn't bother me too much. I even managed to get a few shots of passing albatrosses and petrels.

9th - 12th - we were here right in the centre of a historic moment, witnessing the overwhelming 'Yes' majority in the Falklands referendum. The islanders celebrated, although without much style or alcohol. I even stood next to a group of chavs.