This morning I had a very long conversation with my mother about our February travels in Peru that we are planning. A few more hours on the spreadsheet and then time for a walk around to Penguin River as I hadn’t been over there for a while and wanted to check out all the furry harems along the beach.

Two new furry pups napping in the sun.

Two weaners lounging in the tussock.

The beach was cluttered with pups and their mothers guarded jealously by lots of large males. In fact it was quite a spicy walk along the beach but well worth it. I diverted up into the tussock every now and again to get around a more protective male and had to jump from tussock mound to mound avoiding the smelly wet muddy elly wallows and the weaners.

Also had to be careful not to run into the lone pups who are hidden up off the beach in the tussock waiting for their mothers to come back from a four to five day fishing trip.

It was Katie Whale’s (so called as she is Katie that works at the whaling station as opposed to Katie who is the fisheries biologist and is called Katie Fish) birthday today and she wanted to have a BBQ and the party in one of the old blubber tanks.

There is one with a large hole cut in the side and the roof has been removed. It is a cool venue especially when Tommy takes the generator over and puts up the coloured lighting.

The candles were forgotten for the birthday girls cake so I jumped on the bike and headed back to base to get some. The sun was just setting and there were some beautiful clouds over base.

The South Georgia Mechs way of lighting candles!

I had the pleasant surprise of remembering that I had forgotton to put my advent calender that mum sent down out and therefore got to eat three days of chocolate.