Located 524 miles southwest of South Georgia Island roughly half way to the Antarctic Peninsular lies the South Orkney Islands (60’S latitude 45’ west longitude). Discovered by two sealers in 1821 an American Nathaniel Palmer and the British George Powell, originally named them “Powell’s Group” with the main island called Coronation Island as it was the year of the coronation of King George IV. In 1823 the islands were visited by James Weddell who renamed the Archipelago after the Orkney Islands of Scotland located at roughly the same latitude in the Northern Hemisphere. While not owned by any particular country both Argentina and the U.K. have laid claims on the islands. Apart from some seasonal personnel located on the Argentine and British research bases the islands are uninhabited. The sealing and whaling industries devastated the island’s populations of marine mammals, but seal populations have bounced back and today the South Orkney Islands are a popular site for feeding seals and nesting Chinstrap, Adelie and Gentoo Penguins. On our visit here we mostly focused on Sandefjord Bay, a narrow body of water on the west coast of Coronation Island.

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