When I told some folks that I would go on a trip to South Georgia, the most common reaction I heard was it would be the state of Georgia, one of the states in the United States. Or, some did guess that I would be going to a country near Russia. When I explained that my destination a remote island group in the Southern Ocean, near Antarctica, their reaction would be "Oh, a cruise then". Well, yes and no. It would be on a ship alright but it was far off from being on a cruise, let alone a luxury one. Was it worth it? As far as photography is concerned, yes! But the Southern Ocean was not kind to me. I got seasick from being on a fairly small ship in rough water and I meant, really rough. Maybe not so for seasoned sailors but for me it was. The only way to get to South Georgia is by ship. From Santiago, we flew to Port Stanley on Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) first in a once-a-week flight and it took us 3 long days to reach the destination. A map of the main island and the route of the trip is depicted as the first image. The trip continued to a few islands of the Falkland islands and ended in Ushuaia, the southern tip of Argentina where we boarded a plane to go back to civilization after 21 days.

So, what's special about those remote island with no current permanent population under British rules? Mostly, it was the presence of photogenic wildlife, especially of king penguins that flourish in huge colonies. It was early spring over there and it was the breeding season and the penguin chicks are adorable. However, on some islands, non-indigenous animals cause problems to endemic wildlife population. Reindeer, brought in as a meat source for the whaling industries in the past and worse so, rats, as illegal ship "passengers" were introduced by accident in the past and they pose a serious threat to specific endemic wildlife populations. The government and various organizations have stepped up the process of eradicating those pests.

The climate is classified as polar, and the weather is highly variable and harsh. It could be sunny for a few minutes and quickly it became overcast and 30 minutes later, it could start snowing or raining. It was windy all the time and the temperature hovered around freezing during the day. We stayed in South Georgia, hopping from one landing site to the other for 12 days and we saw only a single day where the morning was sunny just for a few hours but it was still chilly and breezy.

Photography tidbits:
Generally, the images displayed on this gallery are in chronological sequence with some minor changes to tell the "story" better. Until the last minute, I was debating what my maximum focal length would be, 300 or 400mm. At the end, I chose to take my 300mm f/2.8 IS Mark II since it is more compact and lighter but I also took my crop camera body, a Canon 7D, in addition to my Canon 5D Mark III, to compensate for the shorter reach. My lens lineup, in addition to the 300mm lens, which really excelled and ended up being the most used lens, consisted of a 70-200mm f/ 2.8 Mark II, a 24-70mm f/2.8 Mark II, 17mm TS-E and 8-15mm FE zoom lens. Although all lenses were used at one time or the other but the last two shorter lenses were not used much at all and I didn't get any keeper from the two on this trip. Oh, well. I also took both my Mark III TCs, the 1.4X and 2X but the 2X TC didn't get used at all.

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