Antarctica
December 21, 2025 to January 8, 2026
Mike and Judy Henderson
As this installment begins, we've reached South Georgia Island
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12/27/2025 (Saturday) - We're at 54°3'12"S, 37°19'15"W at 6am this morning. The wind is mild and it looks like the sea is fairly calm. We'll definitely go ashore this morning.
We're located toward the top of South Georgia Island, just off a beach area called "Salisbury Plain"
From our cabin we can see an enormous number of penguins on the shore. There's a lot of mist in the air and I was shooting at maximum zoom so the picture isn't clear, but all those white dots are penguins.
According to Apple's Siri, there are between 250,000 to 500,000 penguins during the nesting season at Salisbury Plain. This includes breeding pairs, chicks and non-breeding penguins.
They rotate the boarding groups, so we are in the last excursion this morning, departing the ship at 9:30am.
I read the comics each morning and this one appeared in my feed. Thought I'd share it.
Our time to board the Zodiacs came, and we went down to the Third deck mud room for our boots, and boarded. It was raining a decent amount so we were glad to have all our waterproof equipment.
Boarding the Zodiac in the rain.
Here we are arriving at Salisbury Plain. They ran the Zodiac fairly far up on the beach so I was in very shallow water when I swung my legs over the side. I felt bad for the guys who had to stand in that cold water all morning to assist the Zodiac landings. They are in waterproof gear up to their chests.
There was lots of water from the rain but the penguins and seals didn't seem bothered by it. Judy decided to stay along the beach while I went inland along the path marked out by the crew. It was somewhat difficult walking so I think Judy made the right decision.
I brought my DLSR camera but didn't use it because of the rain. All of the following pictures were taken with an iPhone 17 Pro Max. I'm going to post pictures in the approximate order in which they were taken.
A couple of King penguins, and seal pups.
A fur seal, probably a youngster.
Another King penguin. I lightened his head - it seems that the penguin's head comes out so black that you can't see any detail. These penguins have black feet, and some other species have white feet.
Two fur seal pups. Those streaks you see in the picture are raindrops.
A group of King penguins. The guy second on the right is molting his feathers.
A close view of two baby seals. Again, rain streaks.
A whole group of baby seals.
Some female Elephant seals.
A group of King penguins.
A close-up of two of them. It's still raining.
I thought this picture showed the rain well. Look at the ripples in the water, and you can see the rain drops in the air.
A closer look at one of the penguins in the above picture.
A look back to the Silver Wind.
The penguin on the right was dancing around flapping his flippers, but the other penguin didn't pay any attention.
Here's looking ahead - penguins and more penguins. It almost looks like a flowing glacier, but it's penguins.
A seal family, father, mother and baby.
The baby was enjoying himself in the rain, rolling around on the grass.
I took this picture to show Judy how sloppy part of the walk was. I think she would have had a difficult time walking some of it. I expect this may be the last "expedition" trip we take - we're just getting too old for them.
Another batch of penguins.
They just go on forever, all the way up the mountain.
That was a far as I went. I turned around here and headed back to the landing area. If I recall correctly, the rain slacked off a bit at this time and the colors of the penguins were brighter.
Here's a group with many young penguins. All the brown penguins are young ones.
A pair showing off how beautiful they are.
The same two penguins.
There were a number of young seals in this area.
Then I took the Zodiac back to the ship. Before entering the mud room we were given a boot wash with a pressure washer to give our boots a thorough cleaning. International standards for Antarctic travel are extremely strict to prevent invasive species and Avian flu from being spread from one location to another. We are having a bio-security check in the morning.
That was our morning. Judy had come back to the ship shortly before I did. We had lunch and took it easy while the ship moved to Possession Bay.
At 4:15pm we were called down to board the Zodiac for a boat tour of Possession Bay. Here's Judy while we were waiting to board.
And we're off. It's raining a bit, and cold. Perfect weather to see animals on the bay shore (actually, it was fairly miserable weather). That's our guide with the glasses.
As we approached the shore, there were seals playing in the water. I kept missing a picture because they would break the surface and then go back down quickly.
Here's a landscape view of the area. Note the cluster of King penguins on the shore.
Some seals, including a couple of young ones, near tussac grass. This grass can provide good shelter for penguins and seals.
There was a river flowing out into the sea and the penguins were clustered around it.
When we could see along the river we saw penguins all the way up the river.
This picture of a nearby Zodiac shows you what our groups look like.
The seals were playing by this rocky outcrop - coming out of the water and then diving down. Probably young seals playing seal games.
As we went further along the shore there weren't many penguins, just seals.
Then, the shoreline was low, with no mountains behind it, and there were seals all along it. Not very dense, but a LOT of seals.
A closer look at some of the seals.
Here's a rare genetic mutation, a golden seal.
Many seal pups.
Then we went back to the ship. Later we had a briefing for our next stop, which is at Grytviken, then to dinner and to bed.
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12/28/2025 (Sunday) - We're at anchor just outside of Grytviken, a former whaling station, which is where Shackleton started his expedition to cross the Antarctic continent.
We woke to beautiful weather, bright sunshine, moderate temperature, and almost no wind.
After breakfast we boarded the Zodiac to visit Grytviken.
There's Grytviken ahead of us.
Approaching the landing, we could see the cemetery where Shackleton is buried.
There were lots of seals waiting to welcome us.
We went up to the cemetery and were offered a cup and a taste of a blended whisky, which was the drink provided to expeditions including Shackleton's, to toast Shackleton, "The Boss". A crew member gave a short talk, and we all raised our glasses.
Here I am beside Shackleton's grave. He was 47 years old when he died.
And Judy.
A few more views of the cemetery. I'm standing by the cross in the center of the cemetery.
A grave of a past magistrate.
A close-up of the information on the grave.
The view of Grytviken from the cemetery.
As we were leaving the cemetery another Zodiac was arriving. I include this just to show how the Zodiacs are used.
There were many, many seals in the area, on the beach as well as more inland. I took a lot of pictures of them but will only inflict a small number on you:-)
This one was waiting just outside the cemetery fence.
Some seals on the beach.
A seal family?
The seal pups are so black that they're difficult to photograph. I was on the sunny side of this pup and got a decent picture.
Here's a close-up of a different seal pup, a bit wet and dirty. They are adorable, and playful. They come right up and want to play "chase", but we're not encouraged to interact. Sometimes it's even hard to see one, and avoid stepping on it.
There were some king penguins in the area, also.
A King penguin and a fur seal. Some of these seals have unusual light coloring.
Judy, with a group of King penguins behind her.
This little guy had an itch. He's scratching with his back flipper.
This pup was sound asleep.
More seals at the beach.
A mother seal nursing her pup.
Some of the whale oil storage tanks.
A new building, probably a residence facility. Note how the building is "tied down". It had those wires on both sides.
Here's the church. It was prefabricated in Norway and shipped here to be reassembled in 1913.
The interior of the church.
We went to the post office. The small notice on the front of the red post box noted that the next mail box was in Port Stanley.
It had some shopping as well as post office things.
From here we went to the museum. Judy waited outside while I went in. They had an albatross mounted to the ceiling in the entryway to show the wingspan, which is about 9-12 feet.
I wandered through the museum but didn't take any more pictures.
Judy and I got lost from each other and went back separately to the ship.
[Added note: Our ship passed our biosecurity check with a rating of 100%.]
We had lunch as the ship moved to Stromness for our afternoon excursions.
At 3:30pm we returned to the 3rd deck to take a Zodiac tour. It was a bit cool, but the sun was shining and no rain.
The scenery was lovely but we didn't see a lot of animals up close. There were lots of seals along the shore, but kelp beds prevented us from getting close to them, so I won't have many pictures. Kelp beds form a little protected area for sea life, and seals and penguins enjoy darting around in them,
We came upon an albino seal on the shore resting with other seals.
Here's an interesting sequence of photos. A seal was playing in the water. In the first photo, he leaps completely out of the water.
Then flips over on his back while in the air.
And then re-enters the water. I was shooting into the sun so the photos are a bit dark.
The people on our Zodiac all held up scoreboard signs with a "10":-).
Here's what's left of the whaling station at Stromness. It closed as a whale processing station in 1931/32 because of the declining stock of whales. It was converted to a ship repair yard until it completely closed in 1961.
The Zodiac driver took this picture of Judy and me against the snow covered mountains.
Here, three birds were feeding on a dead fish in a kelp bed. All part of the food chain.
One of the birds came very close to our Zodiac. It's a Northern Giant Petrel.
That was the end of our tour. We went back to the ship and prepared for dinner. Tomorrow we have an early excursion.
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12/29/2025 (Monday) - We're on an early excursion this morning (6:30am) so we were up at 5am. The excursion is a walk to the waterfall that Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean descended to reach the Stromness whaling station. Here's Shackleton's description of that final part of his crossing of South Georgia Island.
"Cautiously we started down the slope that led to warmth and comfort. The last lap of the journey proved extraordinarily difficult. Vainly we searched for a safe, or a reasonably safe, way down from the steep ice-clad mountainside. The sole possible pathway seemed to be a channel cut by water running from the upland. Down through icy water we followed the course of this stream. We were wet to the waist, shivering, cold, and tired. Presently our ears detected an unwelcome sound that might have been musical under other conditions. It was the splashing of a waterfall, and we were at the wrong end. When we reached the top of this fall we peered over cautiously and discovered that there was a drop of twenty-five or thirty feet, with impassable ice cliffs on both sides. To go up again was scarcely thinkable in our utterly wearied condition. The way down was through the waterfall itself. We made fast one end of our rope to a boulder with some difficulty, due to the fact that the rocks had been worn smooth by the running water. Then Worsley and I lowered Crean, who was the heaviest man. He disappeared altogether in the falling water and came out gasping at the bottom. I went next, sliding down the rope, and Worsley, who was the lightest and most nimble member of the party, came last. At the bottom of the fall we were able to stand again on dry land. The rope could not be recovered. We had flung down the adze from the top of the fall and also the logbook and the cooker wrapped in one of our blouses. That was all, except our wet clothes, that we brought out of the Antarctic, which we had entered a year and a half before with well-found ship, full equipment, and high hopes."
You can see the full text here. I recommend you take a look. It makes good reading.
The restaurant opened at 5:30am and we were there. At 6:30 we were called to board a Zodiac. It was cool out, maybe 40°F, essentially no wind, and the bay was as smooth as glass.
When we got to the shore, there were seals all over.
A sweet-looking pup, napping. It's hard to resist wanting to take him home.
Some more seals.
Judy getting ready for the walk. It's a 2.5km walk each way. I checked it on my Apple watch.
Another seal, not a fur seal. Probably a female elephant seal.
Couple of adorable baby seals.
Seals as far as the eye could see.
And then we were off.
The hike was 2.5km to the falls. The crew had assured us the terrain was flat, and it was. But the majority of it was rocky, as you can see in the picture above and below, and we had to cross the stream several times. For the two of us, it was a challenging walk.
Judy had debated whether to go, and decided to give it a try. At about the 1.75km mark, she decided to stop and wait, but she could see the falls. I went on and saw the bottom of the falls close-up.
I asked another hiker to take my picture with my phone. You really don't see much of the falls here. It had warmed up quite a bit - you can see I have my parka open.
Then, I hurried back to where Judy was waiting so that we could be together on the return hike. We took it easy and managed the stream crossings without falling. The stream bed was just rocks, which sometimes shifted when you stepped on them. The water wasn't deep but it was swift.
I took this picture of Judy after we had passed the worse of the terrain. We were almost back to the beach area. The Silver Wind is the small white dot in the center right of the photo.
A look back at the scenery and the terrain we had crossed.
Another scenery shot, looking back.
As we got closer to the beach, we got back to seal and penguin territory.
These are King penguins. Two of them show signs of molting. This period is difficult for them, because they can't go into the water to feed.
This is a Gentoo penguin. We'll see a lot more of them in Antarctica. They have pink feet.
And a final picture of one of the adorable seal pups.
With that, we boarded a Zodiac and returned to the ship. We cleaned up and went to lunch. While we were at lunch, the ship departed Stromness and headed to Fortuna Bay, which is just north of Stromness. I took this shot of the mountains as we were leaving Stromness.
There's an excursion at Fortuna Bay to see a colony of King penguins. Judy and I were taking a nap and missed our time to go on the excursion but I went with the later groups.
As I was going to the Zodiac, I took a picture and the crew mugged for me.
As we were heading to the beach, we passed this iceberg. It looks to me like an old man - maybe something from Lord of the Rings.
Here we are approaching the landing. It was a good landing site - we got off in shallow water. We had been on this Zodiac before - I can tell by the streaks on the console in the front.
Claudia called us into a "penguin huddle" and briefed us on the area. It was really very simple - follow the marked poles. The terrain was easy.
The weather was good - not too cold and no precipitation.
There were lots of seals on the beach and some penguins.
Some King penguins in the beach area.
A few more "Kings".
A couple of cute seal pups. They make little mewing sounds as they come up wanting attention.
Then I continued on along the marked path. It wasn't a hard walk. My Apple watch said the whole route was three quarters of a kilometer (each way). The terrain was rocky but not too difficult to walk on.
As I got close, I could see the extent of the rookery. There's a LOT of penguins here, and this picture only shows about half of the rookery.
Here's a panoramic shot of the rookery. And it doesn't even show all of it.
A closer view of part of the rookery. The air is full of penguin calls. It's hard to believe they can find their mom-dad-or pup with the commotion. And they find their family by their calls.
Look at all the juveniles in this picture. The juveniles are brown.
One last picture. Siri says there are perhaps 20,000 King penguins here.
Then, I headed back to the beach. I took a few pictures on the walk back. Here are two beautiful King penguins.
A note: The ship spreads a tarp on the ground at each landing, so we take our life preservers off and pile them up, and are relieved of the heavy, stiff things while on shore. Before getting back on the Zodiac we pick one up again.
Back on board we went to dinner and then to bed. We have two sea days next as we sail to Elephant Island.
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12/30/2025 (Tuesday) - We're at 54 17'16"S, 36 28'49"W at 7:45am this morning. To avoid a storm path the skipper took us over the top of South Georgia Island and then turned toward Elephant Island, so we're still near South Georgia Island this morning. The schedule is for two sea days.
We're in the Drake Passage area (a bit east of it), so we wonder what kind of seas we will experience for the next couple of days. This morning the ship is rolling a bit so we have to be careful walking but beyond that, it's nothing.
If it doesn't get any worse, we'll call it the "Drake Lake".
Not a lot happens on a sea day, but Judy and I played one of the golf games and Judy took this picture of me putting (I made the putt). Judy did very well. Putting on a rolling ship takes more luck than skill. The swirling carpet design adds another dimension.
At 5pm we had a briefing meeting for everyone, then at 6:30 we went to the Captain's Cocktail reception for Venetian Society Guests (people who have done more than one cruise with Silversea).
During the reception they presented an award to a couple who had 262 nights on Silversea. The flag in the background is the flag of Venice (it's the Venetian Society). The words on the book are "PAX TIBI MARCE, EVANGELISTA MEUS", which translates to "Peace to you, Mark, evangelist".
At 7pm we had dinner with Javier Gonzales, Assistant Expedition Leader, and another couple. It was an interesting evening. Javier is from the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. We had visited Lanzarote on a previous trip. The Canary Islands are an autonomous community of Spain so he has full Spanish citizenship and an EU passport.
The other couple was from Germany, although the man was the son of a Frenchman who had moved to Germany after WWII. He had owned a business that made vibrators for industrial use. Vibrators are used to settle concrete in a form, but his product was used for other applications, such as settling grain in a truck or silo, so that more can be carried, and then vibrating it at the destination so that it can be dumped from the truck. Products you never think of. He said that there were only a few companies, worldwide, who made such products.
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12/31/2025 (Wednesday, New Year's Eve) - We set our clocks back one hour last night. We're at 57°59'17"S, 47°20'55"W at 6:30am this morning, sailing towards Elephant Island. The seas are very calm. One crew member said he's never seen this part of the ocean this calm.
After breakfast we attended a presentation on Antarctica and how it affects the world's climate. Then, at 11am we attended a presentation on the penguins of Antarctica.
After lunch Judy and I did the golf putting game and I won third place and got some extra points for a "hole in one". Here's Judy putting.
Then, at 2pm the ship had a biosecurity inspection of our equipment - required before we can go ashore in Antarctica. We passed.
The ship has a big hammer to make everyone participate in the biosecurity inspection. After being inspected we sign a sheet to indicate that we were inspected. Anyone who didn't participate (or sign) will be denied the ability to go ashore in Antarctica.
We had dinner with another couple but then went to bed - long before midnight.
Tomorrow we arrive at Elephant Island at 8am.
More to come soon.