Low cloud, light rain, boggy moorland: it's like being on the North Yorkshire moors, but with penguins. This morning we landed at Moltke Harbour, to see the remains of the buildings erected by the German expedition of 1882-3. Bits of the framework survive, along with the collapsed dome from the small observatory, but the relentless weather has flattened all but a few reminders that men once wintered here amongst the elephant seals, penguins and near-constant cloud.
The German expedition was here to observe the transit of Venus; a spectacularly optimistic undertaking, given the weather in these parts (precipitation 300+ days per year) – I don't know whether they succeeded, but I think they were more likely to have observed the transit of six months' worth of cloud.
We spotted quite a few reindeer: they were introduced to the island by Norwegian whalers in the 19th century, to remind them of home and to give them something else to kill. At least in this instance it was actually for food; there are no indigenous land animals, unless you count (and you really shouldn't) the rats which arrived with the sealers in the 18th century.
This afternoon we're heading for Jason Bay, first charted by the Swedish expedition of 1901-4 under Nordenskjold (a name that sounds like it might mean "Northern's Cold" if said in a comedy Swedish accent making him ideally suited to Polar exploration, albeit at the wrong end.) Fur seals permitting, we'll land there: fur seals not permitting, we won't. We're not permitted to move them out of the way: the wildlife has right of way here. It's not a good idea to invade a fur seal's territory: attempting to walk through it will leave you with rather less leg than you started with.
This is probably the wrong time to start wondering whether my camera rucksack really is waterproof. I think the pull-out raincover (which I'd forgotten about until 5 seconds ago) is... Er...
