A since long planned trip to the Antarctic finally starts. We are all in all eight Swedes from various parts of the country who decided to make this trip. Roger and myself have a perfect flight Cph/Arn – Paris - Buenos Aires – Ushuaia and land in the evening 30 November. A dinner in town and then bedtime in our beautifully located hotel “La Lenga”.

1 December. We enjoy a super lunch at Chico´s, including King Crab and Black Hake. Mmm!
In the harbor, the South American Tern is numerous, some 400 individuals. We sail out on the Beagle Chanel at 6:30 PM. We head for Falkland Islands.
Our ship, M/v Plancius, accommodates 116 passengers in 53 cabins. Roger and I had one of the nine twin porthole cabins. Considerably more space since the cabin is the same in size as the quadruple cabins, and a wise choice.

2 December. We are on open sea towards Falklands the whole day. Temperature is around 6-8 degrees, so there are no problems to stand on deck. It is getting dark at 10:30 PM.

3 December. We arrive to the Falklands at 5:40 AM. Our first landing (always in Zodiac) is at Carcass Island, the second on Saunders Island. We walk in the sunshine on to a nesting area of Black-browed Albatross. Fabulous!

4 December. We wake up early to enjoy our passage past Cape Pembroke, through The Narrows and into Stanley Harbour in sunshine. Stanley is the capital of the Falklandsl and has about 2500 residents. Landing in Zodiacs at 9 AM and staying in Stanley until noon. After lunch, we head for South Georgia, meaning open sea for the next two and a half days.
Still enjoying relatively calm winds and sunshine.

5 December. Starting on deck at 5:20. Conditions good. Storm-petrels start to appear. Large Albatrosses is limited to one Sothern Royal.
Most of the day good visibility, some sunshine and also some mist.

6 December. A bit windy, 18 m/s, but since the wind is from the stern we have no problem to stand on deck.
At 2:30 PM we pass Shag Rocks.

7 December. Colder this morning and poor visibility. At about 8 AM we can see South Georgia in front of us. Our first planned stop is at Elsehul, but it proves impossible to do a landing there because of the waves being too high. So we make our way to Right Whale Bay.
Since Elsehul remains impossible to get to, we sail to Rositas Harbor. It is situated so that we pass Prion Island and Albatross Island. Here we have breeding Snowy Albatross. Prion Island holds the pipit, as do other islands where the rat eradication project has been successful. The Norwegian Rat has established itself on South Georgia and has managed to almost eliminate the pipit, but a project was launched in time, and now several islands are rat free, and the population of pipits is expected to increase. We are not allowed to land on Prion Island, so no pipit.

8 December. We start in Stromness, an old Whaling station, but also the historic site of Shackleton´s arrival at the end of his South Georgia crossing from Fortuna bay. After a walk around the station we head for Grytviken. We land there at 2 PM. It is still raining a bit as we get a guided tour of this major whaling station that was active until 1962 or so.
The sight is amazing, with a colony of about 200000 pairs of King Penguins plus young. This is South Georgias largest King Penguin colony. We sail back to Gothul and arrive 3:30 PM.

10 December. We make a morning landing in Gold Harbour (6-8 AM). We then head for Coopers Bay
On Coopers Island, outside the bay, there should be a population of South Georgia Pipit. Our Zodiac-driver, Scotsman Kelvin, decides to take a shot at the Island! The waves are not too bad and we get there in 10 minutes. We have about 10 minutes time before we need to turn back and Kelvin finds one spot where we can come close to shore. Here, on the shoreline, we find 3 individuals of this much wanted species.
We sail on and since conditions are optimal, with sun and little wind, we sail through the quite narrow pass