Whaler’s Bay, Deception Island
Entrance to Bailey’s head covered by low clouds.
We were extremely fortunate to be the only ship able to make an excursion to this memorable place this season. We landed on the black basaltic beach which had thermal activity creating a kind of mist over it. This area is a rookery to 150,000 chinstrap penguins. It was definitely an example of sensory overload!
Syble Erdman, our Smithsonian Rep [above] and Julia [R] among the thousands of penguins.
Skuas devour a baby penguin.
The “penguin highway”: the black side is going back and the white side is heading to the ocean to feed [above]. Rick gets caught by a wave, but got great video footage! [R]
We entered the caldera through a natural gateway called Neptune’s Bellows [above]. Rick points out the narrow entrance to the bay from the other side. [Below].
The area is blanketed with ash covered glacier ice and black sand, remnants of Deception’s 8 eruptions, the last in 1970.
The crew dug a pit that created a kind of geothermal jacuzzi that some took advantage of to say they swam in Antarctica. The thought of black sand in our bottoms under our clothes riding back in a Zodiac made us pass ! [L]
This was study in contrast: the breathtaking beauty of the bay
to ruins of the abandoned whaling station; remnants reminding us that 3.6 million barrels of whale oil were extracted using boilers like these with the new grasses growing in the volcanic ash.
