South Georgia – or more correctly South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, SGSSI in the world of abbreviations, is a British Overseas Territory in the southern Atlantic Ocean.   We will include the maritime defence aspects of this far flung outpost in our reporting in future so some background seems appropriate.    It is a remote collection of islands, consisting of South Georgia and a chain of smaller islands, known as the South Sandwich Islands. South Georgia is 104 mile long and 23 miles wide at it’s widest (the Isle of Wight by comparison is only 23 miles in length and 13 miles in width).     South Georgia is by far the largest island in the territory.    The South Sandwich Islands lie about 320 miles southeast of South Georgia.     There is no native population on the islands; the present inhabitants are the British Government Officer, Deputy Postmaster, scientists, and support staff from the British Antarctic Survey who maintain scientific bases at Bird Island and at the capital, King Edward Point, as well as museum staff at nearby Grytviken.

After the Falklands War (1982), a fulltime British military presence was maintained in the Falklands but also at King Edward Point on South Georgia, though this was scaled down during the 1990s until the last detachment left South Georgia in March 2001, after a new station had been built and occupied by the British Antarctic Survey.    The main British military facility in the region is of course at RAF Mount Pleasant and the adjacent Mare Harbour Naval Base on East Falkland.    Apart for the Falkland Guardship, the Patrol Vessel CLYDE and small craft the main naval presence is made up of a Royal Navy destroyer or frigate and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker which carry out the Atlantic Patrol Task (South) mission in the area.   The Royal Navy Ice Patrol Ship PROTECTOR and the two British Antarctic Survey vessels RRS JAMES CLARK ROSS and RRS ERNEST SHACKLETON are season visitors.

Argentina maintained a naval station, Corbeta Uruguay on Thule Island, one of the South Sandwich Islands, from 1976 until 1982 when it was closed by the Royal Navy. The Argentine claim over South Georgia contributed to the 1982 Falklands War.     The Island of South Georgia is said to have been first sighted in 1675 by Anthony de la Roché, a London merchant, and was named Roche Island on a number of early maps.    It was sighted by a commercial Spanish ship named LEON operating out of Saint-Malo in June 1756 and has been confused with Pepys Island, discovered by Dampier and Cowley in 1683, but this proved to be a phantom island.      Captain James Cook circumnavigated the island in 1775 and made the first landing. He claimed the territory for the Kingdom of Great Britain, and named it "the Isle of Georgia" in honour of HRH King George III and the British arrangements for the government of South Georgia were first established under the 1843 British Letters Patent.      Throughout the 19th century, South Georgia was a sealers' base as well as a whalers' base beginning in the 20th century, until whaling ended in the 1960s. A Norwegian, Carl Anton Larsen, established the first land based whaling station and first permanent habitation at Grytviken in 1904. It operated through his Argentine Fishing Company, which settled in Grytviken and the station remained in operation until 1965.     In 1882–1883, a German expedition for the First International Polar Year was stationed at Royal Bay on the southeast side of the island and the scientists of this group observed the transit of Venus and recorded waves produced by the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa.

Seven whaling stations operated under leases granted by the (British) Governor of the Falkland Islands and were all of on the north coast with its sheltered harbours were, starting from the west:

·         Prince Olav Harbour (from 1911–1916 factory ship and small land-based station 1917–1931)

·         Leith Harbour (1909–1965)

·         Stromness (from 1907 factory ship, land-based station 1913–1931, repair yard to 1960/1961)

·         Husvik (from 1907 factory ship, land-based station 1910–1960, not in operation 1930–1945)

·         Grytviken (1904–1964)

·         Godthul (1908–1929, only a rudimentary land base, main operations on factory ship)

·         Ocean Harbour (1909–1920)

With the end of the whaling industry, the stations were abandoned and apart from a few preserved buildings such as the museum and church at Grytviken, only their decaying remains survive.

In 1908, the United Kingdom issued further Letters Patent which established constitutional arrangements for its possessions in the South Atlantic. The Letters Patent covered South Georgia, the South Orkneys, the South Shetlands, the South Sandwich Islands, and Graham Land and this claim was extended in 1917 to include a sector of Antarctica reaching to the South Pole.    In 1909, an administrative centre and residence were established at King Edward Point on South Georgia, near the whaling station of Grytviken. All these events took place prior to the Argentine claim in 1927 for South Georgia.

During the Second World War, the Royal Navy deployed an armed merchant vessel to patrol South Georgian and Antarctic waters against German raiders, along with two four inch shore guns (still present today) protecting Cumberland Bay and Stromness Bay, manned by volunteers from among the Norwegian whalers. The base at King Edward Point was expanded as a research facility in 1949/1950 by the British Antarctic Survey, which until 1962 was called the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey.

Captain James Cook discovered the southern eight islands of the Sandwich Islands Group in 1775, although he lumped the southernmost three together, and their status as separate islands was not established until 1820 by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen.    The northern three islands were discovered by Bellingshausen in 1819.   The United Kingdom formally annexed the South Sandwich Islands through the 1908 Letters Patent, grouping them with other British held territory in Antarctica as the Falkland Islands Dependencies.   All this preceded the Argentine claim on the South Sandwich Islands made in 1938.   The smaller islands and islets off the coast of South Georgia Island include:

                       Bird Island                    Cooper Island                 Grass Island                  Pickersgill Islands

                       Welcome Islands          Willis Islands                 Trinity Island

With some remote rocks also considered part of the South Georgia Group:

·         Shag Rocks 115 miles west-northwest of South Georgia Island

·         Black Rock 105 miles west-northwest of South Georgia Island and 16 km (9.9 mi) southeast of the Shag Rocks

·         Clerke Rocks 35 miles east-southeast of South Georgia Island

The Montagu Island (South Sandwich Islands) comprises eleven mostly volcanic islands (excluding tiny satellite islands and offshore rocks), with some active volcanoes. They form an island arc running north-south in the region about 350 miles and 500 miles southeast of South Georgia.   The northernmost of the South Sandwich Islands form the Traversay Islands and Candlemas Islands groups, while the southernmost make up Southern Thule. The three largest islands – Saunders, Montagu and Bristol – lie between the two. The South Sandwich Islands are uninhabited, though as mentioned above there was a permanently manned Argentine research station was located on Thule Island (1976-1982).    There are automatic weather stations on Thule (Morrell) Island and Zavodovski where to the northwest is the Protector Shoal, a submarine volcano.

Fishing takes place around South Georgia and in adjacent waters in some months of the year, with fishing licences sold by the territory for Patagonian toothfish, cod icefish and krill. Fishing licences bring in millions of pounds a year, most of which is spent on fishery protection and research. All fisheries are regulated and managed in accordance with the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources system.   The South Georgia Fisheries Protection Vessel is the 1,986 GRT 1993 built PHAROS SG a former Northern Lighthouse Tender, bought in 2006 by Byron Marine Limited of the Falkland Islands, and operated by them under a long term Charter to the Government of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands as a fishery patrol and logistic support vessel, which has a helicopter deck.

Tourism has become a larger source of income in recent years, with many cruise ships and sailing yachts visiting the area and the only way to visit South Georgia is by sea, since no airstrips currently exist on the Islands. The territory gains income from landing charges and the sale of souvenirs. Cruise ships often combine a Grytviken visit with a trip to the Antarctic Peninsula.   Charter yacht visits usually begin in the Falkland Islands, last between four and six weeks, and enable guests to visit remote harbours of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Sailing vessels are now required to anchor out and can no longer tie up to the old whaling piers on shore, though one exception to this is the recently upgraded/repaired yacht berth at Grytviken.     All other jetties at former whaling stations lie inside a 656 foot exclusion zone; and berthing, or putting ropes ashore, at these, is forbidden.     Postage stamps and postal history of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are a significant source of income.