The island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic is remote, to say the least – they are 1,390 kilometers (864 mi) east-southeast of the Falkland Islands, considered the ends of the earth by many themselves. There is no air strip and visitor must arrive on the island by boat. On the northern coast of the island is the former whaling station of Stromness, named for a village in the Scottish Orkney isles. The last time the place was used commercially was in the early 1960s. Now it is left to decay, its only company the seals and penguins native to the islands.
The first whaling station on the island was built in the harbour in 1907 as a kind of floating factory. Business must have been good as the permanent land station followed in 1912. The place operated as a whaling station until 1931 when it was converted in to a ship repair yard. Just thirty years later the entire place was abandoned.
