Moltke Harbour & Gold Harbour
Travel Location: Oceania
“For sheer downright misery, give me a hurricane, not too warm, the yard of a sailing ship, a wet sail and a bout of sea sickness.” Apsley Cherry Garrard, with Scott’s Expedition
A couple other cool out-of-the-way places on South Georgia are Moltke Harbour and Gold Harbour, where we anchored and landed by our now-trusty steeds, the Zodiacs, on two different mornings.
The most awesome, interesting, cool sight in Moltke Harbour was some video footage I shot (just before our departure back to the Professor) of a couple juvenile male Southern Elephant Seals engaging in some playful mock sparing.
Heavy cloud cover and windy, rainy conditions precipitated our 8am landing at Moltke on the morning of the 12th. After a quick look around the shore, a group of us set off on a little walk, led by Jonathan Shackleton, up a canyon to explore the source of a rocky streambed and the accompanying, interweaving double helices of water flows. A short 30-minute walk and final scramble up some bouldery terrain brought us to a beautiful waterfall, flowing heavily through a maze of striated rock formations and originating out of a valley that opened up before us in stunning fashion upon cresting a high-ground vantage. Unfortunately, the overcast weather rendered the photos I took much less spectacular than the in-person, live vistas…but you’ll have to believe me when I say it was amazing.
After some time ogling the beauty and expanse, the wind and rain forced our retreat back down the canyon, through a veritable labyrinth of Fur Seals (including a couple growlers in the 5-pounder lightweight class) and back to our landing spot.
The most awesome, interesting, cool sight in Moltke Harbour was some video footage I shot (just before our departure back to the Professor) of a couple juvenile male Southern Elephant Seals engaging in some playful mock sparing. The two males probably weighed around 700 kilos (1,500 pounds), far smaller than the mature, dominant “beach-master” males that weigh in around 5,000 kilos (11,000 pounds) and have already headed out to deep-ocean waters in the wake of breeding season…and who engage in far bloodier battles for breeding rights and territory, sometimes to the death.
Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUNpTKAKaN8
Video 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlbJevskRNc
In contrast to Moltke, our 9am landing at Gold Harbour the morning of the 13th yielded much better weather, and fantastic vistas of the Weddell Glacier as well as more striated mountain ranges, interrupted by a patchwork of snow scatter and a variegated schematic of the beloved South Georgia tones: blues, greens, whites, charcoal grays and deep blacks.
Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/timothyshoup/sets/72157603998860407/
Sailing out of Gold Harbour, we headed over to our final excursion in South Georgia, the exotic, striking and “Mordor-esque” Drygalski Fjord…
