Deception Island, Bransfield Strait, South Shetlands
Roused by a bad trip, we stumbled bleary-eyed into our cold weather gear, ready to storm the rugged ramparts of Deception Island. But instead, we had a surprise sunrise treat: coming on deck, we looked out to a pewter-grey sea full of feeding whales. The bushy blows and knuckled backs were followed by curling tails, pure white underneath, the classic clues to the Humpback Whale. Martin, our navigation officer, gently turned the ship in towards them without disrupting their gargantuan breakfast, until we had them surfacing right under the bow; one was so close we could see the double string of bubbles from its nostrils before it finally surfaced with a burst of drifting mist. Close enough to see the "stove bolts" on its snout, the hooked hump on the back and the rim of the tail studded with barnacles. What a show! A distant whale even breached spectacularly in front of the island, and far out where a lone iceberg drifted along the horizon, further puffs gave a blow by blow account of rich krill pickings.
After breakfast, we went in to Bailey Head beach to try and visit the huge Chinstrap penguin colony. This is a difficult site with a legendary surfbreak. We had managed to get four Zodiac loads ashore before it became clear that the surf was a little wilder than we'd like, so we swallowed our pride (as well as a bit of saltwater and volcanic grit) and beat a managed retreat to the warmth and welcome of our little blue ship. Then it was all on deck to watch the spectacular passage through "Neptune's Bellows" into the flooded caldera. This is somewhat easier than passing a camel through the eye of a needle, but there on the shore was the wrecked evidence of another ship which failed. We steamed the 5 miles across the inner lake of the volcano to Telefon Bay, and worked off some of our accumulated blubber by trekking up to the rim of one of the most recent volcanic craters, over a hill and back down through the volcanic ash and cinders to the beach. If anyone has signed up for a Moon trip, this visit will save them a lot of cash: the black desert of grit and clinker pocked with craters looks pretty much like the Sea of Inaccessibility. Our file of red-clad lunatics trudged back across this volcanic wasteland like red spider mites on a black wall.
After undoing all that good work with a splendid buffet lunch, we landed on the steaming beach of Whaler's Bay, scene of one of the most spectacular eruptions in 1969. While a black mushroom cloud of volcanic ash rose 30,000 feet in the air, Chilean and British scientists were helicoptered off just before a hot mud avalanche buried their research base. Mindful of all this, and the cloud of steam emanating from the beach, we walked up to Neptune's Window, pausing every 10 minutes to feel for seismic tremors. One reckless group, oblivious to the geological record, frolicked in a steaming puddle like happy krill. Looking at the scale of this giant collapsed volcano, we realise that we are indeed merely prawns in the game….
Roused by a bad trip, we stumbled bleary-eyed into our cold weather gear, ready to storm the rugged ramparts of Deception Island. But instead, we had a surprise sunrise treat: coming on deck, we looked out to a pewter-grey sea full of feeding whales. The bushy blows and knuckled backs were followed by curling tails, pure white underneath, the classic clues to the Humpback Whale. Martin, our navigation officer, gently turned the ship in towards them without disrupting their gargantuan breakfast, until we had them surfacing right under the bow; one was so close we could see the double string of bubbles from its nostrils before it finally surfaced with a burst of drifting mist. Close enough to see the "stove bolts" on its snout, the hooked hump on the back and the rim of the tail studded with barnacles. What a show! A distant whale even breached spectacularly in front of the island, and far out where a lone iceberg drifted along the horizon, further puffs gave a blow by blow account of rich krill pickings.
After breakfast, we went in to Bailey Head beach to try and visit the huge Chinstrap penguin colony. This is a difficult site with a legendary surfbreak. We had managed to get four Zodiac loads ashore before it became clear that the surf was a little wilder than we'd like, so we swallowed our pride (as well as a bit of saltwater and volcanic grit) and beat a managed retreat to the warmth and welcome of our little blue ship. Then it was all on deck to watch the spectacular passage through "Neptune's Bellows" into the flooded caldera. This is somewhat easier than passing a camel through the eye of a needle, but there on the shore was the wrecked evidence of another ship which failed. We steamed the 5 miles across the inner lake of the volcano to Telefon Bay, and worked off some of our accumulated blubber by trekking up to the rim of one of the most recent volcanic craters, over a hill and back down through the volcanic ash and cinders to the beach. If anyone has signed up for a Moon trip, this visit will save them a lot of cash: the black desert of grit and clinker pocked with craters looks pretty much like the Sea of Inaccessibility. Our file of red-clad lunatics trudged back across this volcanic wasteland like red spider mites on a black wall.
After undoing all that good work with a splendid buffet lunch, we landed on the steaming beach of Whaler's Bay, scene of one of the most spectacular eruptions in 1969. While a black mushroom cloud of volcanic ash rose 30,000 feet in the air, Chilean and British scientists were helicoptered off just before a hot mud avalanche buried their research base. Mindful of all this, and the cloud of steam emanating from the beach, we walked up to Neptune's Window, pausing every 10 minutes to feel for seismic tremors. One reckless group, oblivious to the geological record, frolicked in a steaming puddle like happy krill. Looking at the scale of this giant collapsed volcano, we realise that we are indeed merely prawns in the game….
