Most people miss these ‘add on’ islands. They’re like nowhere else on Earth

Here are a few things it pays to remember before you visit South Georgia: first, don’t step on the penguins; second, don’t run if an Antarctic fur seal or a southern elephant seal charges at you (they’re bluffing); and third, don’t be fixated on the islands’ most famous permanent resident – there’s more to South Georgia than downing a shot of whisky beside Ernest Shackleton’s grave.

The islands of South Georgia are a bonus add-on for Antarctic cruisers. Fewer than 15,000 people visit each year, compared with the 120,000 expedition ship travellers to Antarctica. Going to South Georgia, a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean, 1300 kilometres north-east of the Antarctic Peninsula, will mean a longer expedition, of course – with a higher premium – but it feels very different to being in Antarctica.

There’s plenty of green among the ice and snow, for starters, and the beaches are jam-packed with mega-colonies of penguins and seals like nowhere in Antarctica, or anywhere else on Earth.

South Georgia is dubbed the “Serengeti of the Southern Ocean” for its proliferation of wild animals. There are more than 5 million penguins, 6 million Antarctic fur seals, and half the population of the world’s largest seal, the southern elephant seal. The sea that surrounds it teems with all kinds of whales because the nutrient-rich ocean currents off South Georgia create a biological factory for krill.

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I’m visiting as part of a 20-day combined-destination expedition which also includes the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. We left the Falklands nearly three days ago with little to see except the occasional whale, so there’s a sense of excitement among the passengers on the fifth-floor observation deck when we arrive off South Georgia’s northern coast.

It’s late November, the middle of breeding season, and thousands of penguins and seals line up along the beach – one of the longest in these islands at five kilometres. So dense is the coverage, I can’t see any of the beach at all.

When I finally lift my gaze from the beach, I see the foothills that lead to the towering, gnarled ice and black rock mountains beyond, which are also crammed with penguins that make up one of the world’s largest king penguin colonies with a population over 120,000.

As we step onshore from the tender, a fur seal pup mock charges our boat. It’s a defensive tactic, apparently it will only advance further if you run, since fast movement triggers its fight-or-flight response.

King penguins, the second-largest penguin behind the emperor, waddle toward me and stare up. When I walk across the snow in my heavy boots, they shuffle beside and behind me, as a kind of escort. When I pause to take a photo, I swear two of them stop and pose. Fur seals may bark and grunt to show who’s boss, but king penguins are the most gracious of hosts.

Among the white-and-orange and yellow-coloured king penguins, I see thousands of penguins wearing brown fluffy fur coats. Early researchers called these penguins fluffy penguins.