Aurora Expeditions - Expedition leader, exploring Antarctica and South Georgia
/Since 2019, apart from during Covid, Ashley Perrin has been contracted by Aurora Expeditions as Expedition Leader on their new vessel, the Greg Mortimer. In the winter of 2021-22 Ashley made three trips with Aurora to the peninsula, the Antarctic Circle, Falkland Islands and South Georgia. The South Georgia trip was a homecoming for Ashley as she was Boating Officer at King Edward Point in 2010 and 2011 including overwintering with the British Antarctic Survey.
Highlights of the season included visits to Elephant Island, King Haakon Bay and Peggotty Bluff, ‘in the footsteps’ of Shackleton. All three places are notoriously difficult to approach most of the time because of their latitude and the weather, so to reach all three in the same expedition was fortuitous indeed. Since the successful rat eradication the South Georgia pipit is seen daily and the humpback whales are starting to frequent the waters again post whaling. 100,000s of King penguins and their chicks at St Andrews and Salisbury Plain.
The South Georgia expedition was written up by James Lafferty in the London Times and the Sydney Morning Herald. Following in Shackleton’s footsteps was very special after the Endurance was found at the beginning of March.
Expedition Leading a 130 passenger explorer vessel is very different to piloting/guiding private yacht and superyacht expeditions requiring a different skill set. Days at sea and on-land are never wasted in this region and there’s always something to learn. New places visited for Ashley this season included Stonington, Fish Islands, Avian Island, Lindblad Cove, Cape Rosa, Peggotty Bluff and Grand Jason in the Falkland Islands. The black browed albatross colony at Grand Jason is the largest in the world and is a site to behold.