Elsehul, South Georgia: Here's what a lot of the beaches look like in South Georgia (tho' this was the worst one we actually landed on). These are southern fur seals. They smell. The moistness of the ground you see in front is part rain, part seal excrement. It smells too. Finally, these charming creatures will charge you at about your top sprinting speed, and bite you, badly. (Sandy and I were chased twice, fortunately without ill results.) Invariably, the wound becomes infected. The shack you see in the background was a British observation post that had to be abandoned because of seal overpopulation; one worker came within a few hours of having a leg amputated because of an infected seal bite. You can also see at the upper left that most of the grass has been stripped off the hillside; that's because of seal damage. Why are there so many? They eat krill. Humans have killed most of the whales, so there's a lot more krill for seals. Ergo, more seals. 

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