If you’re looking to get the most out of your Antarctic cruise experience, there are few better ways to do it than by adding the Subantarctic island of South Georgia to your itinerary. This wildly remote island is a hundred-mile mountain range erupting out of some of the richest seas on the planet. Known as the Serengeti of the Southern Ocean, from penguins and seals to albatrosses, it has one of the densest concentrations of marine wildlife anywhere on the planet.
South Georgia can be visited any time during the Austral summer, but in recent years we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of expedition cruises coming in mid-October and pushing forward the traditional start of the season in November by several weeks. We look at what makes spring the new summer, and why it’s such an exciting time to visit..
- Battling elephant seals
- Arrival of the fur seals
- King penguins in the snow
- First footprints of the season
- Antarctica in spring
Battling elephant seals
The end of the long cold winter in the Southern Ocean sees the region spring into life, and South Georgia’s wildlife is no exception. The island is home to literally millions of seabirds, who break out their courtship rituals and tidy up their nests the moment the temperatures rise. Albatross chicks who have endured a harsh winter on the nest test their wings, and everywhere on the beaches South Georgia’s seals start to take centre stage.
Two main seal species dominate the island’s beaches: Southern elephant seals and Antarctic fur seals. Travelling at the very start of the season in October offers the best chance of seeing one of nature’s greatest shows: bull elephant seals battling it out for supremacy – and mating rights.
A fully grown Southern elephant seal bull is the largest seal on the planet. Males can reach 6.5 metres (21 feet) in length and top the scales at 4.5 tonnes. And on South Georgia’s beaches, that’s a weight that they love to throw around. From September, the bulls come ashore to claim their pitch and fight all comers, in the hope of winning a territory that can contain a harem of as many as a hundred cows.
Over a period of two months, the bulls engage in ferocious ‘jousting’, in a clash of the titans that can make the earth shake (see this David Attenborough clip if you don’t believe us: they’re like two trucks repeatedly smashing into each other). By the time most expedition cruise ships visit in November, these fights are normally over with the mating season complete, but early visitors have the chance of seeing the biggest bulls – known as beachmasters – fight for dominance.
Arrival of the fur seals
As the elephant seal mating season passes in November, it’s time for the fur seals to take over – and South Georgia has more fur seals than anywhere else on Earth. Around four million call the island home.
Most expedition cruise ships time their first visit of the season with the male fur seals coming onshore to stake their claim. Fur seals breed in harems, but the sheer density of animals makes holding any mating territory a challenge. By mid-November and into December, the beaches of some landing sites in South Georgia (including those like St Andrews Bay that are famed for their king penguin colonies) can sometimes be so densely packed with male fur seals that it’s simply impossible to land on shore. Instead, zodiacs may switch to running shoreline safaris instead, while unlucky bull seals patrol the surf, looking for their chance to steal a breeding spot.
Early season visits in October avoid this risk, with ships arriving before the fur seal breeding season takes hold. It’s a win-win situation: not only are the beaches less crowded, fewer visiting ships gives Expedition Leaders increased flexibility in where they can visit.
King penguins in the snow
Fur seal pups arrive in the new year, but whatever time of the season you visit – including October – there will definitely be king penguin chicks on display. This icon of South Georgia takes more than a year to fledge its chicks, leading to an unusual breeding cycle with pairs raising two chicks every three years. Some hatch in early in the season, while others arrive very late, so no matter which month you arrive, if you visit a king penguin colony on South Georgia, you’re guaranteed to see large numbers of fluffy brown chicks.
One unexpected result of an October trip is the chance of seeing king penguins in the snow. Penguins in snowy surroundings are a given on the Antarctic Peninsula, but they’re a much rarer sight in South Georgia unless you visit when winter’s fingers still have their last grip on the landscape. While South Georgia’s unpredictable weather means than snow on the ground can’t be guaranteed, the first visits of the season are the only time it’s on the cards.
First footprints of the season
The prints you leave in the snow here are a happy reminder that you’re the first people to visit after the long winter months. For many of the expedition guides we speak to, the early season is their favourite time for expedition cruising. That blanket of snow makes the world new every year, and for the expedition guides that work here, this is a time of maximum excitement. After months away, they’re getting to see favourite landing sites again, never quite knowing what they’ll be like after the winter. Every landing and zodiac cruise is fresh and new for the team and passengers alike to discover as pioneers.
And while we’re singing the praises of South Georgia, we mustn’t leave out that other crucial part of the equation: Antarctica! The snow on the Peninsula is at its deepest and most beautiful, while the light of the slowly lengthening days still offers an opportunity for wonderful sunrises and sunsets: an often overlooked delight that’s lost in the near 24 hours of daylight at the height of summer.
Antarctic landings at this time of year can be the most exciting, with the expedition team often having to carve steps out of the snow to allow you to get on shore. Beyond those steps, the snow is an impossibly pristine carpet of white. The only evidence of life beyond this are the neat tracks of penguin highways, made by hundreds and then thousands of birds coming back to land to breed after months at sea.
Antarctica in spring
Early season in Antarctica also brings the chance of encountering the last lingering pack ice of winter, as the continent in spring shakes itself out of its frozen prison. That extra ice only adds to the sense of being on adventure, as the ship’s Captain plots and readjusts their course, and the Expedition Leader adapts the day’s plan to take advantage of the conditions. This makes for expedition cruising at its most unpredictable and exciting: the thrill of the unexpected.
In truth, there is no ‘perfect’ time to visit Antarctica and South Georgia. Travelling early means arriving before the humpback whales that make the later months so exciting, or the playful fur seal pups that throng beaches after Christmas. But if you’re looking to experience the region through the freshest of eyes, and to see epic spectacles that aren’t on offer at any other time, like the jousting of mighty elephant seals, then being on the first ships of the season might just be for you. As the marketing slogan says: book early to avoid disappointment.
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