Hannah Point / Deception Island
This morning dawned high overcast with ocean as far as the eye could see. We knew our destination- Hanna Point—on the western end of Livingston Island and part of the South Shetland island group was not far off but it wasn’t until the late morning that our first glimpse of solid ground emerged on the horizon. It first appeared as a white disk floating on the sea and, as we neared turned out to be just that. Most every block of land at these latitudes is, or was recently capped in ice and Livingston Island is no exception. Gradually arching its way from the water’s edge the interior of Livingston is domed as the depth of the ice increases towards the island’s center where most of the accumulation takes place.
Our first landfall at Hanna Point introduced us to a number of new species. Gentoo, Chinstrap, and even a pair of Macaroni penguins and their chicks dotted the rugged coastal landscape. 2-6 week-old chicks sat at the feet of their doting parents who occasionally entertained their chick’s bill pecking for a morsel of regurgitated food.
We also shared our first landing with a number of molting elephant seals, nesting southern giant petrels, kelp gulls and skuas. With all this new stimuli on our first landing we decided to head to a nearby location to calm our nerves with a soothing dip in “thermal” waters.
Approaching from the north, Deception Island lives up to its name by concealing a bite taken out of what is actually its crater rim. This means that Deception Island is named for the fact that it is actually the flooded remains of a still active volcano which can be entered from the east. This is exactly what we did this evening, timing our entrance to allow everyone aboard an opportunity to dine within an active caldera south of 60 degrees south latitude.
Following dinner we took some time to stroll the dilapidated remains of what was one of the largest whaling operations in the southern hemisphere until the 1930’s. Old fuel and blubber storage tanks, rusting high pressurized cookers and deteriorating wooden structures dotted the shoreline while the shrill of post dinner polar plungers echoed off the crater rim. The “thermal” conditions we had speculated on earlier turned out to be nothing but false hopes and yet dozens of guests threw themselves into the icy waters for a chance to claim the title of craziest southern traveler. Shots were of course fired and the results, as shown here, will live in infamy.
