During breakfast, we sailed  into the Bay of Isles, where spent most of the morning. This body of water is a large, island-filled bay located in the northwestern region of South Georgia. The islands in the Bay of Isles are free of rats, so the region is very important for smaller breeding sea birds, such as prions and white-chinned petrels, and especially for the only Antarctic songbird... the South Georgia pipit. Numerous giant petrels and wandering albatrosses also nest on the islands. The government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands has closed most of the islands here to visitors, but we have a special permit to land on Prion Island. The conditions were good this morning, so we were able to land on a small beach and climb up along a streambed to the tussock (tussac)-covered plateau in order to look for nesting wandering albatrosses and giant petrels. The route up and up was very sticky slimey gooey mud! Literally boot-sucking mud. One of the guests became stuck and it took Magnus literally had to wade in after her and carry her out. (He saved the boot, too.)

In recent years, breeding fur seals have taken over the landing beaches of all the islands and it is sometimes difficult to get ashore safely, but we only saw the occasional aggressive/playful baby variety. Once we got to the top of the ridge, we were treated to some lovely breeding behaviors - the dances that the birds do our amazingly graceful, and we got to witness several "versions" including one dance that actually had four birds joining in and competing for each other.