ambition. I wondered whether our own aspirations were going to meet a similarly humbling end. Nothing I heard from the locals did anything to reduce the anxiety I felt about what lay ahead of us. We left in falling snow about 3pm. There was not a breath of wind. South Georgia was showing us a welcoming benign face. The falling snow, disarmingly beautiful, gave a fairytale-like air to those first few kilometres. Snowflakes settled on the Bears and dusted the cliffs and tussock clumps. The seawater was so cold that the snow formed patches of porridgy slush rather than melting. We opted for a short day rather than a pushy leg to the next known landing, which would have entailed setting up camp in the dusk. Maiviken cove it was to be then, absolutely picturesque, with a small beach littered with elephant seals, fur seals and gentoo penguins. The backdrop was tussocks capped with snow and out in the bay a blue berg lay grounded like a sapphire in a puddle of snow melt. We used a snow shovel to level a patch of gravel and pitched our Hemisphere as we would every night, anticipating the worst, with two poles through each sleeve, canvas valences weighted down with gravel, and guys strung to clumps of tussock or large rocks. It was as bombproof as a small tent could be. Any sense of security however evaporated once inside with sound of scrunching gravel as 3 tonnes of elephant seal galloped past the door. We awoke, unsquashed, to a calm, clearing morning and paddled for three hours past Stromness Bay, the distant ruined whaling station we could just discern from the crest of the bigger swells. The sea pounded the island with unrestrained force in a campaign against the land that was as old as the earth itself. 3-4 metres of swell produced a great confusion of reflection waves and spectacular scenery. At the appropriately named Humpback Rock huge plumes of surf shot skyward as though a whale was breaching. I had a cross marked on our map (which indicated a potential landing spot garnered from something read or someone talked to) at the back of Hercules Bay, 20km from where our day began. However, the cliffs surrounding the bay were as precipitous as the rest of the coastline and we headed into the
10
ISSUE THIRTYf
ive • 2006
It was an enchanting and very strange world to find oneself in as a sea kayaker, with snow falling and penguins swimming beside us in the frigid waters
farthest corner, a kilometre away, on faith that our information was correct. Sure enough a 50-metre ribbon of gravel had been heaved above the sea at the back of the bay. A waterfall poured onto the beach with the usual compliment of elephants, furries, gentoos and king penguins. Even beyond a slight necking in the bay the surf break was violent. After careful observation I lined up one of the bigger swells paddled hard on the back of it and landed high on the steep beach. It was text-book shore break landing, quickly jumping out of my kayak, it was all I could do to hold it on the steep slope and haul it over the lip of the beach onto the berm. The water around the island shallowed quickly and the beaches were steeper than anything I had ever landed on. After we were ashore we broke open our lunch packs and revelled in the