An Antarctic fur seal. Photo: PHOTOSTOCK-ISRAEL/SCIENCE PHOTO / PSI / Science Photo Library via AFP
A group of 22 inspiring explorers have returned from South Georgia after a week on one of the most remote islands in the world.
Sponsored by The Royal Society Te Apārangi, MetService and The Antarctic Heritage Trust, participants aged 18 to 30 were sent with the aim to develop an interactive card game to teach children about the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia's complex environment.
More than 170km long and 35km wide, the island is home to 30 million birds, 7 million penguins, 2 million fur seals, and half of the world's southern elephant seals - giving it the highest density of wildlife on earth.
Twenty explorers were selected from the application process, some were students, others journalists, historians, climate experts and scientific researchers.
MetService meteorologist Kelly Davenport and The Royal Society early career researcher Kaitlyn Martin spearheaded the team, where each participant was chosen for their enthusiasm to delve into the spirit of exploration and discovery, whilst committed to sharing the insights of the trip back home in Aotearoa.
South Georgia Island is in the South Atlantic Ocean. Photo: Screenshot / Google Maps
The crew travelled 9000km in total to Chile first, followed by the Falkland Islands - from where they then sailed for two days to dock offshore South Georgia.
A keen astronomer herself, Martin said there was nothing like the South Georgia night sky.
"I've never seen anything like it. The sky's absolutely clear. You're standing out there completely alone a couple hundred metres off the shore, and even at that distance you could hear elephant seals, you could hear penguins, you could hear icebergs cracking," she said.
"And you're just stood there thinking 'wow, we're really out there'."
Martin said the real fascination for her as a researcher was the way people talked about their experiences and passed on new knowledge.
"We went into it with all of the expectations you would have going into South Georgia. Starting to see incredible wildlife and environment, which we absolutely did," she said.
"Returning from the trip and educating people on what the team saw firsthand, in turn, opens the door of that experience to other people.
"The trip would have such a different impact on [the] variety of our team. For some that's their first time travelling out of New Zealand, for others that's realising that they needed to change their careers, or go back to something they're incredibly passionate about."
Martin said the team were all part of different outreach programmes, meaning they would continue to share their insights through education, film, art and science projects.
"A lot of what we talked about on the trip was that this was a really special place that had been on the brink of losing a lot of its wildlife."
South Georgia's environment has been impacted historically by whaling and sealing, and major conservation efforts from pest control to protected areas agreed upon in 2022 are in place to restore biodiversity and conserve whale, seal and 11 threatened bird species populations inhabiting the region.
"It's right in front of your face, the way that this place was saved with that kind of effort," Martin said.
Unrelenting weather cut the trip short, and the crew who had been exploring for seven days had to return across 6m- to 8m-high swells to safety.
The expedition commemorates 100 since historic explorer Ernest Shackleton's final voyage aboard the Quest in 1921. He died from a heart attack whilst his ship was moored in South Georgia, and on his wife's request he was buried there.
When asked what was next for this team of explorers, Martin said it was the end of the trip but not the end of the journey.
Many would return to South Georgia again while others would leave with lessons to share, as explorers were intended.