During breakfast, the ship sailed into very scenic Fortuna Bay, where we went ashore for a chance to hike on a low flat plain and visit with some king penguins and any other wildlife in the area. Fortuna Bay features in the Shackleton saga, because when he and his companions hiked across the island from King Haakon Bay, they ended up here by mistake in their search for Stromness whaling station. He soon realized they had missed it by a few miles and then continued walking over one more pass and finally sighted the station, eventually reaching salvation. We followed in Shackleton's footsteps for this last stretch... from Fortuna Bay to Stromness whaling station.

This trek is about four miles and entailed steep hiking on loose rocks in some places, and a tricky, steep descent on loose rocks and wet moss beds near the head of Stromness Bay. The views from the top were magnificent - we were even treated to rainbow over the glaciers at Fortuna. Once in the Stromness valley, we saw caribou (reindeer) that were introduced as a food source for the whalers. They have limited range due to glaciers and snow cover, but have done fairly well in the low-lying areas. We also saw a small group of gentoos.

While we made our Shackleton crossing over to Stromness Bay, the ENDEAVOUR sailed around to the meet us at the site of the old Stromness whaling station. Captain Skog actually drove the ship's bow right onto the beach to "park" it. The floor of the bay drops away quite quickly here, and he told me that it is actually safer and easier to this then to drop an anchor because of all of the bits of junk on the floor of the bay left over from the whaling days. We had a little time to hike and explore the area, which was covered with fur seal pups. The Stromness whaling station settlement was established in 1912, eight years after the first one at Grytviken. The whaling operation was curtailed here in 1931 (during the Depression when whale oil prices dropped), but the site continued to be used as a repair yard until it closed permanently in 1961. Today it is in total ruin, and is off limits to visitors for safety reasons.