Deception Island
Our good ship Endeavour arrived early this morning at Deception Island after retracing its way back through Antarctic Sound. Just off Baily Head at Deception Island we were treated to three sei whales; then followed a stupendous show by a female humpback whale and her year-old calf. Even though it was early, we red-backs poured onto the bow despite breakfast awaiting to view these creatures seemingly arm lengths away. They breached, blew, lobtailed, did axial 360s, and waved their incredibly long flippers high.
Wave conditions forbade a hoped-for but seldom-achieved landing at Baily Head and, what might have been for the heartier among us, a steep climb over the crater rim down into Whaler’s Bay. But sometimes an adverse condition favors another experience, and we indeed had it at the Vapour chinstrap penguin colony several miles away. Here we piled into Zodiacs and amid stiff breezes, 31° F (-0.5° C), and ocean swells toured the colony just offshore: and oh! what a hard life penguins can have. Their only colony access was a shore of huge, jagged, steep lava boulders, and the birds were thrown against their shore repeatedly by surging three-foot waves crashing on the rocks. The penguins would struggle to get a claw-hold and were as often as not sucked back into the sea. Meanwhile, a leopard seal patrolled the access, and as the huge toothy creature maneuvered along the shore and between our Zodiacs we witnessed it taking several hapless chinstraps, thrashing them out of their skins before dining on them as snacks. (The photo shows a leopard seal and its chinstrap kill of moments before at the upper left.) Skuas and giant petrels swooped in to quarrel over the remains, the luckiest birds making off with their morsels to dine in seclusion.
We passed through Neptune’s Bellows into calm Port Foster, the swamped interior of the volcano, and at Whaler’s Bay we were reminded by the sulfurous steam rising from the black sand beach that this is a volcanic site that remains very much alive. We walked up to Neptune’s Window where we could view distant icebergs on the Bransfield Strait and cape petrel colonies on the steep cliffs beneath us. We wandered among the fascinating historical ruins of the early 20th-century Norwegian whaling industry and the mid-century British research station (Base B under Operation Tabarin) that was abandoned in the late 1960s after volcanic eruptions. Many aboard were eager to swim in the Antarctic, and a swimming pool of sorts was shoveled out of the sand at water’s edge. Our leader Tom Ritchie led the way by being first into the pool, and soon quite a few red-backs shed their outer garments for their bathing suits beneath and took the plunge. Hearty souls, all! Once aboard, we repositioned at the head of Port Foster at Telefon Bay for a walk over volcanic moonscape up to a ridge overlooking a beautiful lake in surroundings barren except for some scattered lichens.
Departing Port Foster, we headed south for the magnificent sights and wildlife on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula awaiting us. In the evening after dinner, we heard a lecture, “The Classical and Heroic Eras of Antarctic Exploration.”
Our good ship Endeavour arrived early this morning at Deception Island after retracing its way back through Antarctic Sound. Just off Baily Head at Deception Island we were treated to three sei whales; then followed a stupendous show by a female humpback whale and her year-old calf. Even though it was early, we red-backs poured onto the bow despite breakfast awaiting to view these creatures seemingly arm lengths away. They breached, blew, lobtailed, did axial 360s, and waved their incredibly long flippers high.
Wave conditions forbade a hoped-for but seldom-achieved landing at Baily Head and, what might have been for the heartier among us, a steep climb over the crater rim down into Whaler’s Bay. But sometimes an adverse condition favors another experience, and we indeed had it at the Vapour chinstrap penguin colony several miles away. Here we piled into Zodiacs and amid stiff breezes, 31° F (-0.5° C), and ocean swells toured the colony just offshore: and oh! what a hard life penguins can have. Their only colony access was a shore of huge, jagged, steep lava boulders, and the birds were thrown against their shore repeatedly by surging three-foot waves crashing on the rocks. The penguins would struggle to get a claw-hold and were as often as not sucked back into the sea. Meanwhile, a leopard seal patrolled the access, and as the huge toothy creature maneuvered along the shore and between our Zodiacs we witnessed it taking several hapless chinstraps, thrashing them out of their skins before dining on them as snacks. (The photo shows a leopard seal and its chinstrap kill of moments before at the upper left.) Skuas and giant petrels swooped in to quarrel over the remains, the luckiest birds making off with their morsels to dine in seclusion.
We passed through Neptune’s Bellows into calm Port Foster, the swamped interior of the volcano, and at Whaler’s Bay we were reminded by the sulfurous steam rising from the black sand beach that this is a volcanic site that remains very much alive. We walked up to Neptune’s Window where we could view distant icebergs on the Bransfield Strait and cape petrel colonies on the steep cliffs beneath us. We wandered among the fascinating historical ruins of the early 20th-century Norwegian whaling industry and the mid-century British research station (Base B under Operation Tabarin) that was abandoned in the late 1960s after volcanic eruptions. Many aboard were eager to swim in the Antarctic, and a swimming pool of sorts was shoveled out of the sand at water’s edge. Our leader Tom Ritchie led the way by being first into the pool, and soon quite a few red-backs shed their outer garments for their bathing suits beneath and took the plunge. Hearty souls, all! Once aboard, we repositioned at the head of Port Foster at Telefon Bay for a walk over volcanic moonscape up to a ridge overlooking a beautiful lake in surroundings barren except for some scattered lichens.
Departing Port Foster, we headed south for the magnificent sights and wildlife on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula awaiting us. In the evening after dinner, we heard a lecture, “The Classical and Heroic Eras of Antarctic Exploration.”
