King Haakon Bay

King Haakon Bay is an eight mile (13km) inlet on the western coast of South Georgia. It was named for the king of Norway in 1912 by Carl Anton Larsen, the founder of the whaling industry here. Nearly a dozen glaciers feed into the bay, although all are receding: climate change means that the tongue of only one still reaches directly into the sea.

Even during the time of whaling, no settlements were founded on the west coast of South Georgia due to its extreme exposure to the prevailing polar weather whipping up from the Scotia Sea. King Haakon Bay would remain unvisited to this day but one for one fact: it was here that the tiny James Caird landed in 1916 at the conclusion of Shackleton's dramatic voyage from Elephant Island to rescue the stranded crew of the Endurance, and was the starting point for his hike across the island to the whaling station at Stromness.

For this reason alone, King Haakon Bay is the only location on this side of the island visited today by expedition cruise ships – should the weather allow a visit to the west coast.

As well as Cape Rosa and Peggotty Bluff, visitors should keep their eyes open for McNish Island, on the northern approach to King Haakon Bay. It was christened in 1958 by the British Antarctic Survey in honour of the Endurance carpenter Henry McNish, who made the boat seaworthy as well as being part of the crew. 

On 18 May, Shackleton, Frank Worsley and Tom Crean set out to trek across the unmapped interior of the island to raise the alarm at one of the whaling stations. Their clothes were tattered; the only possible concession they could make to the icy conditions was to fix screws from the boat onto their boots for grip. After 30 hours of non-stop travel, finally blessed by good weather and full moon, they arrived at Stromness. The three men left at Peggotty Bluff who were in too poor a condition to attempt the hike – Tom Vincent, Henry 'Chippy' McNish and Timothy McCarthy – were rescued by a whaling ship the next day, in a hurricane that would have killed Shackleton, Worsley and Crean had it hit just hours earlier.

While many visitors to South Georgia happily hike the final stage of the Shackleton Walk (a 2.5 mile (4km) walk from Fortuna Bay to Stromness), it is also possible to recreate the full mountain journey. This is a truly once in a lifetime experience for those with sufficient alpine climbing and trekking experience. Knowledge of glacier travel techniques is mandatory, and all booking applications are reviewed by one of the climbing guides leading the group to assess suitability. If you'd like to know more, please get in touch.

Elephant seals proliferate along the northern shore of King Haakon Bay. It was their presence here that convinced Shackleton that they could overwinter here if the crossing of South Georgia proved impossible. As with elsewhere on the island, fur seals are also relatively recent colonisers.

Small numbers of King Penguins and gentoo penguins can often be seen at Peggotty Bluff. Giant petrels, brown skuas and kelp gulls nest in the tussac, and South Georgia pipits are seen and heard in increasing numbers. In Cape Rosa, there are large numbers of burrowing seabirds: common diving petrels, blue petrels and Antarctic prions. The nesting albatrosses that Shackleton's party so hungrily feasted on are no longer recorded here.