We woke up looking out at Icebergs out the window. We were headed for a harbor where we hoped to at least get into the Zodiacs to cruise by the Macaroni Penguins, but the wind was 40 knots gusting to 60 so there was no way to get people off the ship. We cruised by in the ship instead. It's too far to really see the Macaroni's in great detail but we did get some views.
Since we couldn't go ashore they called an audible and went to the Salisbury Plain - the site of the second largest King Penguin colonies with over 70 thousand nesting pairs of King Penguins. We were able to cruise by and sit in the harbor. The scale of what 140K penguins looks like was really awe inspiring. We also got good views of them in the water as they came out to look at the ship, they are quite curious.
After lunch we were able to go ashore at the 4th largest King Penguin Colony at Right Whale Bay, Bay of Isles. There were lots of Fur Seals with pups, female Elephant seals and pups as well as the 4th largest King Penguin colony all living pretty much side by side not really bothering with each other. Despite the winds the bay was calm and protected.
We headed back to the ship after about 90 minutes of time with the colony. It was a really interesting day in South Georgia and the ships crew did an excellent job dodging weather to make sure that we still saw all of the areas that we wanted to see today.
After dinner we headed up to the Library - a nice quiet area at the back of the ship with about 270 degree views, and lots of little areas to sit and relax. The WiFi there is better than in our room and so we sat and did the blog and edited pictures while Conrad watched the live updates on the eagles game until we saw that they won. We couldn't see much about what was happening other than who had the ball and on what yardline along with time and down.
Tomorrow we will head off to the South Georgia Whaling stations and the fina resting place of Sie Ernest Shackleton.