Deception Island
The wind was churning the ocean, fighting with the waters, pulling them skyward into frosted hillocks. Even inside the collapsed caldera of Deception Island where the mountains embraced a natural harbor, it continued to dominate the world. As we walked the dark and cinder paved shores or climbed to peer from high Neptune's Window, it pushed against our bodies. It howled through the glass-free windows of the old whaling base and beat an echoing rhythm within massive oil storage tanks. The clouds hung low and somber over a land where whaling vessels once stood, their stories so visibly told in the remnants left behind. What a strange world this was, this place called Deception Island. Within it was like the inside of an urn, tightly lidded and dark. And yet the exterior was alive, ornate and brightly colored. The skies turned blue and sunlight streamed down the white bellies of thousands of chinstrap penguins tumbling from the surf tossed shore of Baily Head. A penguin highway carried them to a land of brilliant green hidden in a magic valley where the slopes were carpeted with emerald algae and the volcanic cliffs splashed with lichen orange. En route, they passed a similar purposeful mass of their neighbors bound for a bath and a filling meal. A chorus of ecstatic calls announced the return of mates to take over the task of caring for tiny fluffy gray chicks. Each parent was smartly dressed in its black skull cap tied tightly with a matching strap beneath the chin. Their amber eyes registered our presence but we were of no more importance to them than the rocks which defined their paths.Heading north we passed close to the snow covered cliffs of Livingston Island and paused to look at the rocky fortress of Greenwich. Standing on the mysterious shores of Roberts Island we watched the sun sink low painting the glaciers in golds and blues. There at our feet the patterns of the day melded - the monochromes of crustose lichens covering rocks that sat in a sea of lush jade moss.
The wind was churning the ocean, fighting with the waters, pulling them skyward into frosted hillocks. Even inside the collapsed caldera of Deception Island where the mountains embraced a natural harbor, it continued to dominate the world. As we walked the dark and cinder paved shores or climbed to peer from high Neptune's Window, it pushed against our bodies. It howled through the glass-free windows of the old whaling base and beat an echoing rhythm within massive oil storage tanks. The clouds hung low and somber over a land where whaling vessels once stood, their stories so visibly told in the remnants left behind. What a strange world this was, this place called Deception Island. Within it was like the inside of an urn, tightly lidded and dark. And yet the exterior was alive, ornate and brightly colored. The skies turned blue and sunlight streamed down the white bellies of thousands of chinstrap penguins tumbling from the surf tossed shore of Baily Head. A penguin highway carried them to a land of brilliant green hidden in a magic valley where the slopes were carpeted with emerald algae and the volcanic cliffs splashed with lichen orange. En route, they passed a similar purposeful mass of their neighbors bound for a bath and a filling meal. A chorus of ecstatic calls announced the return of mates to take over the task of caring for tiny fluffy gray chicks. Each parent was smartly dressed in its black skull cap tied tightly with a matching strap beneath the chin. Their amber eyes registered our presence but we were of no more importance to them than the rocks which defined their paths.Heading north we passed close to the snow covered cliffs of Livingston Island and paused to look at the rocky fortress of Greenwich. Standing on the mysterious shores of Roberts Island we watched the sun sink low painting the glaciers in golds and blues. There at our feet the patterns of the day melded - the monochromes of crustose lichens covering rocks that sat in a sea of lush jade moss.
