Part 11 in my Journey to Antarctica. If you enjoy the stories and photos, please comment and let me know!
Fur Seal enjoying the Sunset.
My journey takes me to the resting place of the legendary Shackleton (if you don't know, look him up. Awesome story.) on South Georgia. Grytviken is a now derelict whaling station, slowly being recovered by nature. The rusting structures tell a story of a different time with different mentality for people. A time where whales were hunted down in mass for their meat and oil.
Rusting structures once used for the processing whale parts.
A church stands in the small "town". Built in the whaling days, this church was rarely used for its intended purposes, but instead as more of a general gathering hall for the people working on the whaling station.
Standing there, I can imagine hundreds of whales swimming around the bay, as long ago reports stated. The red rusting structures make me think of the whale blood that would have covered the floor.
The bay as seen from our ship.
Now, this town serves a bastion in the protection of the Antarctic oceans. Life has begun to return to the area. Fishing is now sustainable, and illegal fishermen get their ships confiscated and destroyed.
A dilapidated ship that once once used as a whaling ship.
I'm happy to see buddy seals and bad seals coming onto the shore, resting in the sunlight. The occasional penguin, on vacation away from their colony, waddles up the beach, enjoying these strange non natural structures and wondering what purpose they may have served.
The humans have mostly gone, and the wildlife here doesn't seem to mind at all.
A lone gentoo penguin on the beach
