Godthul

The name Godthul means 'good cove' in Norwegian, and visitors today are liable to agree, even as they come in more benign circumstances than the sealers and whales who gave the bay its name.

Godthul is a popular place to call for its lively gentoo penguin colony, but also for being one of the few spots on South Georgia where you can truly connect with the island's whaling history. There was never a station here, but the bay served as a supply depot for a floating factory ship that moored here from 1908. In those early days of whaling carcasses were simply dumped after being stripped of their blubber, which is why Godthul's beaches are so littered with washed up bones.

There is a ruined hut here, a depot of rusting barrels and several small wooden boats called jolla that were used as flensing platforms to strip the whale carcasses tied against the factory ships. 

There is excellent walking from above the whaling ruins towards a body of water called Echo Lake with its waterfall backdrop and nesting gentoos, or steeply uphill to the summit of the hill, which has views on either side to Godthul or to Horseshoe Bay on the eastern side of the point.

Godthul is home to a colony of several hundred pairs of gentoo penguins, who nest in the tussac grass. There is the typical sprinkling of elephant seals and fur seals on the beach, but here it's the numbers of gentoos that make choosing a landing spot a careful decision for guides. King penguins are often present on the beach but do not breed here.

Climbing up from the beach, the tussac hosts the nests of southern and northern giant petrels and the burrows of white-chinned petrels, while the steeper slopes facing to sea make the ideal nesting spot for light-mantled albatross. Other confirmed breeders here include brown skuas, Antarctic terns, snowy sheathbills and South Georgia pintails.