MS National Geographic Explorer
Elsehul and Prince Olav Harbour
Wednesday, March 2, 2011

    This morning, the ship arrived at Elsehul, where we planned Zodiac tours of the shoreline. The weather this morning was foggy with a low overcast, but by the time that my Zodiac was ready to launch, the skies began to open up to a bit of gray/blue sky. There were a number of southern elephant seals on shore, lying in small clusters waiting to complete their molt. As always, there were plenty of fur seal youngsters playing on the beach and in the waters just off shore.

    Elsehul is the site of nesting for several of the seabirds, including some black-browed albatrosses, light-mantled sooty albatrosses, gray-headed albatrosses, and South Georgia shag. Large numbers of these birds were flying around and you could just see, high on the cliff sides, lots of juvenile birds in their nests tucked in and around the tussock grass clumps.

    After lunch, this ship repositioned to Prince Olav Harbour, the site of an abandoned fur sealing station. Like all these abandoned hunting stations, it is rusting away slowly and is totally off limits to visitors. Even a sudden wind can result in collapse of large iron structures or blow bits of shrapnel around. There is also a lot of residual asbestos in the structures. The closest permitted approach is 200 meters.

    At Prince Olav Harbour, we landed and climbed up the cliffs, harassed by fur seal pups lunging out of the tussock grass like something out of a 1940's “jungle” thriller. From high up the cliffs, we looked down at the remains of the station and enjoyed the fine view of the area. Some people chose to take advantage of this calm bay to sea kayak. I preferred the exercise of the hike.