Deception Island, South Shetland Islands
We’re here! The Drake is but a memory of gently rolling seas for by mid-morning land was to be seen. The excitement on the bridge was palpable as Smith Island’s steep slopes appeared upon the horizon, guarding one flank of Boyd Strait. To the port, Snow Island looked just as it sounded it should, a smooth and contoured mound of white.
It is not as if the day had not already been filled with thrills. Pintado petrels swirled about us all morning long, random arrangements of chocolate speckles forming a constantly changing kaleidoscope. Its hypnotic motion was broken periodically by the solid dark and white of their more organized relative, the Antarctic petrel. Sheer beauty radiated off the graceful bodies of two light-mantled sooty albatross as they performed an aerial ballet. An icy boat, polished smooth, bobbed upon the waves, seeming to twist and turn as if a bronco, wild and restless. And yet the occupants of this bergy-bit rode as if rooted to its surface. Here were our first penguins, chinstraps, right where we had imagined them to be – on ice.
Deception Island loomed, its countenance gloomy and dark, until we took a closer look. At Baily Head, the black and cinder beach fairly squirmed with life. Curling, foaming surf seemed to toss stocky black and white bodies onto the sand. The next surge snatched ones with dirty bellies and took them out to sea. All were dressed the same. The penguins here in Antarctica all wear black and white but it is their head gear that differentiates one species from another. Black helmets were held in place by delicate straps buckled under the chin. Amber eyes glowed from the whitest of faces. As the waves deposited us somewhat gently on the same beach we found ourselves following a chinstrap highway. The thoroughfare was busy and most stayed in their own lanes when going to the sea to bath and feed or marching home to take up their domestic duties. Within a curving valley, penguin colonies rose as far as the eye could see. On the whole life within was tranquil, for most were quietly incubating awaiting the arrival of this year’s progeny. But here and there a ruckus rose. Returning partners were greeted with a raucous call. Occasionally a hopeful bird, alone on the edge of the group, would raise his head and bellow loudly, “Are there any here unwed?” Evil lurked in the skies. Skuas patrolled low over the colonies seeking the unwary or the slow, stealing eggs for they too required sustenance. All too soon we were drawn back to the water’s edge and whisked away by Zodiac.
Deception Island is a restless caldera, so they say. And yet we found ourselves entering the one narrow slot that carries one to the interior, to the hidden harbour within the heart of the volcano. We weren’t the first. On the shore in Whaler’s Bay, remnants of a whaling operation remain, a story to be told in relics left behind. And is that steam, arising from the beach? An evening swim proves that all that simmers is not necessarily warm!
