South Georgia Newsletter, Aug 2009

From South Georgia Website

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Expected Visitor Numbers Dip During The Recession

Early indications are that 63 tour ships are due to visit South Georgia in the coming season, seven visits down on last season.

If all the vessels are fully booked they could bring 7,700 tourists this summer. Actual occupancy is normally less though, so we are probably expecting nearer 6,600 passengers, which would be a fifteen percent drop compared to the previous season.

If the recession leads to lower than average occupancy then passengers numbers will be lower still, but tour operators are currently advertising some good offers to try to fill places on the planned ships.

It is not only the global recession hitting visitor numbers, they are also being lowered by GSGSSI's new policies to only allow IAATO (International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators) registered ships to visit the Island, and a ban on ships carrying more than 500 passengers. During the last recession (2001-2) tour ship numbers and passenger numbers dipped for two years before continuing the steady rise that has been the trend since cruise ship tourism started here in 1970.

The 2009/10 season starts early with a visit from tour ship "Ushuaia" on October 8th.

Three ships new to South Georgia are due to visit: the 120 passenger "Expedition"; 100 passenger "Clelia II"; and 112 passenger "Plancius".

Shackleton Definitive Stamp Set

The life of Sir Ernest Shackleton is the theme for the new South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands definitive stamp set released on August 14th. The set of 12 stamps will be used for the next five years.

Shackleton, the Edwardian Antarctic explorer, has a special place in the history of South Georgia. He visited the Island on three occasions, he also died and was buried here at Grytviken in 1922.

The 1p stamp features a photograph of Shackleton aged 11. Shackleton was born on February 15th 1874 at Kilkea in Ireland. He was educated first at Lodge Preparatory School and then at Dulwich College. He did not shine in classes, more from lack of application than deficiency in intelligence. He was fond of reading stories of the sea and his childhood games had a nautical basis. His father had hoped he would follow him into medicine, but he accepted his son's wish to go to sea. Shackleton left school at 16 to join the "Hoghton Tower", a fully-rigged ship, at Liverpool. The ship's captain later reported Shackleton to be “the most pig-headed obstinate boy I have ever come across”.

The 2p stamp shows Shackleton in White Star Line uniform at the age of sixteen.

Life on routine, uneventful voyages did not offer the opportunities for action and advancement to satisfy Shackleton's energy and desire to make a name for himself. The 'National Antarctic Expedition' under Commander Robert Falcon Scott did offer such opportunities and the 5p stamp shows him in polar dress as a member of the 'Discovery Expedition' in 1902.

It was essentially a Royal Navy expedition and Shackleton was commissioned Sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Reserve. After the wintering base had been set up, Shackleton was chosen to accompany Scott and Edward Wilson on the pioneering journey to explore as far south as possible. Although the men achieved a record 'Farthest South', the journey over the Great Ice Barrier, now called the Ross Iceshelf, was not a success. The husky dogs quickly weakened and eventually died, leaving the men to pull the heavy sledge themselves. They developed scurvy, caused by a diet wholly deficient in vitamin C; Shackleton was worst afflicted and it was only with the greatest difficulty that the three men reached base. In view of the state of his health, Shackleton was sent home on the relief ship.

Shackleton met Emily Dorman, a friend of his sister Ethel, in the summer of 1897. Before leaving on the 'Discovery Expedition', Shackleton wrote to Emily's father, a wealthy solicitor, saying that he would be seeking permission to marry when he was making the money to support her. On his return from Antarctica, he had a short spell in journalism and was then appointed Secretary to the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. This employment enabled him to marry Emily in April 1904. The Shackletons had three children: Raymond, Cecily and Edward. The 10p stamp is a photograph of Emily and the children.

On November 30th 1907, Shackleton's own expedition, the 'British Antarctic Expedition', set sail from London aboard "Nimrod" bound for Antarctica and the South Pole. Shackleton was relying on Manchurian ponies to pull the sledges. Ponies had been used extensively in the Arctic but were to prove less successful in the Antarctic. He took only nine husky dogs but pioneered the use of motor transport in Polar Regions with his 15 horse-power Arrol-Johnston motor car. The expedition wintered at Cape Royds, in McMurdo Sound. Before winter set in, a party of six men climbed the active volcano Mount Erebus (3794 metres). The following spring another party of three reached the South Magnetic Pole while Shackleton and three companions headed for the South Pole. The motor car proved unsuccessful on soft surfaces and the four ponies weakened and died. The loss of the last one down a crevasse effectively prevented Shackleton from reaching the Pole. Even with reduced daily rations, it became clear that the men could not get to the Pole and survive the return journey. They turned back at 88° 23' South, only 97 geographic miles (180 kilometres) from the Pole. The 27p stamp shows the polar party Wild, Shackleton, Marshall & Adams shortly after they returned from the journey.

After Amundsen and Scott reached the South Pole in the southern summer 1911-12, Shackleton decided to make the ultimate journey of exploration: the crossing of the Antarctic continent. The 'Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition' was immensely ambitious but ended as a 'glorious failure'. Shackleton's plan was to set out from the coast of the Weddell Sea, travel across unexplored territory to the South Pole and then follow the route, pioneered on his previous expedition, to his old base on the Ross Sea coast. A second party landing from another ship would already have set up base there and established depots along the route for the crossing party to pick up. The expedition ship "Endurance" headed into the Weddell Sea but became trapped inextricably when the sea froze. The 55p stamp is based on expedition photographer Hurley's famous photograph of "Endurance" trapped in the ice.

With hopes of crossing Antarctica dashed, Shackleton's problem was to get his men safely home. Throughout the long, dark Antarctic winter, "Endurance" slowly drifted northwards but was eventually crushed by the unrelenting pressure of the ice. The crew set up camp on an ice-floe and continued the slow drift north. Eventually they reached the edge of the pack-ice and took to three small boats. There followed a 7-day battle with ice and waves before a precarious landfall was made on Elephant Island.

A camp was established on a narrow spit of land they called Point Wild. No-one in the outside world knew where they were so Shackleton determined to go in search of help. The 6.7 m lifeboat "James Caird", named after the expedition's major sponsor, was prepared for the crossing to South Georgia, 1280 km away. The 65p stamps shows them launching "James Caird" for the 16-day journey through stormy seas and icy weather. The crew of six miraculously reached the southern coast of South Georgia.

To reach the whaling stations, Shackleton, accompanied by Frank Worsley and Tom Crean, made the first ever crossing of South Georgia. With hardly a stop for food or rest, the three men arrived at Stromness in a state of exhaustion after an amazing 36 hour trek.

The 90p stamp is based on a photo of Crean, Shackleton & Worsley shortly after completing the crossing. It took four attempts to reach the 22 men on Elephant Island before they were rescued and bought to safety in the Chilean tug "Yelcho", Shackleton set off for New Zealand to join the rescue of the Ross Sea party who had been stranded ashore.

The next stamp in the series, £1, shows Shackleton as a major in the army aged 44. Shackleton was keen to play an active part in the war and did not want a mundane job. He was sent to South America to assist in improving British propaganda to counteract the strong German influence among neutral nations. On his return he was sent to Murmansk where a small expeditionary force had been sent to prevent its capture by the Germans.

The end of the war left Shackleton without a job. He spent five months lecturing, twice a day, six days a week, at the Philharmonic Hall in London but he was already planning a new expedition and his attention had turned to the Arctic. The area of the Beaufort Sea, north of Canada, was still unexplored, and there was the possibility of new land to be discovered. Shackleton obtained support from the Canadian government, bought a ship, renamed "Quest", and gathered a team that included old comrades from "Endurance". Then the Canadian government changed and support was withdrawn. So Shackleton decided to head for the Antarctic, and produced an ambitious programme of oceanography, marine biology, meteorology and survey.

"Quest" was extremely slow and stops for repairs on the voyage south delayed the expedition. Shackleton headed for South Georgia and "Quest" anchored in the familiar cove at Grytviken. Shackleton had been suffering from pains and tiredness, and that night, at 2.40 am on January 5th 1922, he died of a heart attack. His body was conveyed to Montevideo, Uruguay, for transport to England. Meanwhile the expedition, continued with Frank Wild in command. The £2 stamp shows the "Quest" in the ice of the Weddell Sea. Having returned to South Georgia via Elephant Island, the "Quest" crew were surprised to find Shackleton's grave in the whalers' cemetery at Grytviken. Lady Shackleton had requested that he should be laid to rest in the Antarctic. His body had been brought back from Montevideo and buried by the whalers with the British magistrate officiating. The crew built a cairn surmounted by a cross as a memorial on Hope Point. The £3 stamp shows the men who had shared the perils of the "Endurance" expedition gathered at his grave for a last farewell to the man they knew as the 'Boss'.

In the £5 stamp Sir Ernest H. Shackleton is seen planning one of his expeditions. Shackleton achieved lasting fame, but he never made his fortune. He was a man with boundless energy and enthusiasm and not suited to the routine of office life. His business ventures failed and success came though his expeditions. Here he could make use of his ability to enthuse people into backing his plans or following his lead, either as members of a committee or men struggling for survival on the ice. He has emerged as a role model in recent years because his care of, and communication with, his men is in tune with modern ideals of leadership. The rescue of the crew of the "Endurance" has become one of the greatest epic stories of polar exploration. The expedition utterly failed in its objectives but the rescue was a personal triumph for Shackleton and secured his reputation.

The above is based on text by Robert Burton.

The stamps and set of three First Day Cover were designed by Andrew Robinson. These and other South Georgia stamps can be purchased from the Philatelic Bureau, Falkland Islands http://www.falklandstamps.com; their South Georgia page here.

Fishing And Shipping News

Ten longliners were fishing for toothfish at the beginning of the month. The toothfish season closed at midnight on August 31st. The majority of the longliners had completed their Total Allowable Catch and sailed to Stanley, Falkland Islands, for catch verification before season end.

Krill trawler "Juvel" arrived for inspection and licensing on August 7th and then sailed to search for krill in the vicinity of the South Sandwich Islands. Another trawler returned to the South Georgia Fishing Zone, but neither we successful.

Centenary of Leith Whaling Station

By Bob Burton

On September 13th 1909, 100 years ago, the "s.s. Starlight" arrived at South Georgia with men and materials to erect a shore whaling station. Her destination was a cove in Stromness Bay which became known appropriately as Leith Harbour because the company building the station was Christian Salvesen's of Leith, on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

The site of Leith Harbour had been reconnoitred the previous year by Henrik Henriksen, who became the first manager. The station was built at the head of the cove, at a site known as Jericho, but after two avalanches and a rockfall, which killed three men, much of the station was relocated to its present position, 1 km southward. A second ship "Coronda" arrived on November 30th, incidentally bringing South Georgia's first magistrate James Innes Wilson, and the first whale was caught on December 10th by the whale-catcher "Semla".

Henriksen was succeeded by Leganger Hansen in 1916. He remained until 1937, earning the unofficial title of 'King of South Georgia'. As well as making Leith Harbour pre-eminent among the Island's shore stations, he planned the operations of Salvesen's pelagic factory ships.

Salvesen's of Leith, as the name suggests, had its origins in Norway (until recently the company logo was based on the Norwegian flag). In 1851 Christian Salvesen settled in Scotland and established a successful company with shipping and other interests, including Arctic whaling. His son Theodore took the company to the South Atlantic, whaling first at New Island in the Falklands and then at Leith Harbour. Salvesen's later dominant place in the whaling industry was driven by Theodore's son Harold. He became a leader in the negotiations to restrict catches and preserve whale stocks and drove the technical developments that increased the efficiency of the whaling process. He also confronted a Norwegian union's attempts to reserve whaling jobs for its own nationals and, by the 1950s, half Salvesen's employees were British.

From the outset, Salvesen's were required by the terms of their lease with the government of the Falkland Islands Dependencies to utilise the whole whale, rather than wastefully strip the blubber and jettison the rest of the carcass as was the practice at Grytviken.

Leith Harbour survived the overproduction crisis of 1931, which forced some other land stations to close. This was due to the financial strength of Salvesen's. Operation was able to continue because of the station's technical efficiency and its use as a forward base for Salvesens' factory ships. Stromness whaling station was leased in 1931 and used for maintaining the company's whale-catchers.

By the end of the 1950s, Leith Harbour was utilising every part of the whale, including the baleen which was used in the manufacture of brushes. Nevertheless whaling was going into a steep decline through overfishing of the whales. Salvesen's ceased operations at Leith Harbour in the 1961/2 season but the station was sub-leased to a Japanese company which operated until December 15th 1965.

This was the end of whaling at South Georgia but there is a postscript. Salvesen's bought the leases of all the whaling stations on the Island in the mid-1970s, on the off-chance that whaling or some other industry might become viable in the future. In 1979, Constantino Davidoff of Buenos Aires contracted with Salvesen's to salvage machinery and other items from the abandoned whaling stations. The involvement of the Argentine navy in Davidoff's venture was a prelude to the invasion of South Georgia and the Falkland Islands in 1982.

Bird Island News

By Stacey Adlard, Zoological Field Assistant at the BAS station, Bird Island.

This month we have been treated to some gorgeous weather, which is such a rare treat on Bird Island. We have had full days of blue skies and sunshine and a week with no wind at all. It makes such a nice change to be able to sit outside and feel the warmth of the sun. One day we climbed La Roche and admired the view of South Georgia and Bird Island in the sun and snow. On the way back down we dug snow tunnels, before returning to base for dinner, with slightly sunburnt faces.

At the start of the month we took part in a 48-hour film festival with other bases around the Antarctic. We were given a set of criteria to fulfil, and then only 48 hours to produce a 5-minute movie. It was great fun to make, although the novelty was starting to wear off at 5am on the morning it had to be submitted, when we were still editing sound and movie clips! Later in the month, we enjoyed watching the movies produced by the other bases.

One night we went camping in the little cave on Bandersnatch, the hill behind base. We melted snow to make hot chocolate and sat outside watching the snow falling (although the wind meant most of the snow was going upwards rather than falling downwards!). The small size of the cave gave us a very cosy night. No one complained it was cold!

Despite all of the fun, we did actually do some work this month. We spent some time doing jobs around base, including cleaning and disinfecting the entire water system and servicing the generators. Jose continued to be busy with his deployments on wandering albatrosses, and, on grey days, the rest of us made a start on our annual reports. The monthly wanderer survey revealed no chicks to have failed since last month, which was good to see.

The tasks of an average winters day for the BAS personnel on Bird Island.

This month we were visited by large numbers of snow petrels. These birds are usually seldom seen here, but at times we recorded up to 15 birds feeding together in the bay. It has been lovely to see them so close, and we have all spent time out with our cameras.

Recently, there have been frequent sightings of chinstrap penguins, which make a nice change from the usual gentoos. On a more disturbing note however, there seems to be unusually high numbers of dead gentoo penguins washing up along the beaches. We have also started finding aborted fur seal foetuses on the beaches. We hope these are not indicators of a bad breeding season to come.

By the end of the month, the giant petrels had started settling down on nests, ready for the start of the breeding season. It will not be long before they start laying eggs and the breeding season begins all over again.

Nigel Marven To Talk At SGHT Fund-Raiser

A date for your diary: On November 10th the South Georgia Heritage Trust will hold a special event at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in London.

Wildlife Presenter Nigel Marven will give a lecture entitled "Filming Penguins and Pipits in South Georgia - how do you do that?" about his time filming the 'Penguin Safari' TV series. Footage from the series will accompany the talk, showing how he and his film team filmed the Island's diverse wildlife, including the birth of an elephant seal.

Before the lecture there will be a VIP reception and art exhibition in the RGS Map Room. Enjoy a drink, get introduced to the special guest, and view the South Georgia art before attending Nigel Marven's lecture in the Ondaatje Lecture Theatre.

Art on display will be from Molly Sheridan, Bruce Pearson, John Gale, Mike Skidmore, Claire Harkess, Steve Massam, Elaine Shemilt and Chris Furse. All the artwork will be on sale, with 30% of the sale price going to SGHT's conservation work.

Tickets to the VIP reception and lecture are £35. Tickets to the lecture are £15. Buy your tickets from the SGHT website [here http://www.sght.org].

South Georgia Snippets

It has been a wintry month on the Island. Temperatures have stayed low and large snowfalls have now added to the season's snow accumulation, giving plenty of opportunity to stay fit digging-out entrances, pathways and windows. Unusually easterly winds persisted for a week, bringing ice and leopard seals into King Edward Cove.

The deep, soft, snow conditions made the Search and Rescue practice, held on August 10th, hard work. With only a small team of people living on the Island, we occasionally practice the skills we may need to get an injured person back to base should one of us get hurt. A stretcher-sledge was used to bring the "casualty" down from the hill to the shoreline, where they were lifted onto the small RIB before being transferred onto the harbour launch for the trip across the cove to the surgery.

One group went out overnight for field training in snow-craft and survival. It took four soggy hours to dig a snow hole big enough for the four of them to sleep in, lying on benches cut into the snow, for an imperfect but cosy enough night's sleep.

Three base members had a well timed five-day trip to the Barff Peninsula. They caught the best weather of the month and had a pretty active time including: a day trip to Ocean Harbour; climbing Mt Ellerbeck; and an overnight trip to St Andrews Bay where the king penguin chicks in their big brown fluffy chick plumage were creched in big huddles on the snow awaiting irregular visits from the parents birds to feed them.

The keen skiers were glad of a couple of excuses to go for a ski for work reasons. A radio repeater on Mt Duse ridge helps us maintain radio communications with the boats throughout the boating range. The repeater has not been working so visits were made to try to rectify the problem. The long haul up to the ridge on a nice day is rewarded with great views and a nice long downhill ski to get home afterwards.

The weddell seal we saw last month stayed around for quite while, hauled out on the snow at Grytviken. Though the weather has been convincingly wintry, the elephant seals know the spring approaches and the first of the big males started hauling out on the breeding beaches in the last few days of the month. When the wind drops their snorting calls can be heard echoing round the Cove.

August wildlife; rare and usual.

Here are some more of those real questions asked by tourists visiting South Georgia, collected by cruise staff member and historian Bob Headland:

Is this island completely surrounded by water?

Is there such a thing as a female sperm whale?

Are there any more undiscovered islands?

What happens to an iceberg when it melts?

Do penguins have belly buttons?

View Of The Month

Don’t forget to see this month’s 'View of the Month' on the South Georgia Heritage Trust website.

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