Overnight we steamed north to Deception Island. It is one of the South Shetland Islands just off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Deception Island is the caldera of a volcano. It is named due to the deception of it being a normal island, whereas there is a narrow passageway into the large bay of the circular ringed island. This passageway is called Neptune’s Bellows, with only a small navigable area between rocks and shore. Normally it s completely covered in cloud, but we had good weather, at least for Deception Island.
The island is all volcanic rock and sand, and looked quite nice with a dusting of snow everywhere. We anchored in the back of the island in a place called Telefon Bay, where we made the short trip to the beach to land. On shore we changed from our rubber boots to our hiking boots for a 2km trek around one of the volcanic craters. The volcano last erupted in the 1960s, but there are still some areas of geothermal activity.
It felt good to stretch our legs further than the confines of the boat or small shore landing areas, and the craters were quite bleak and monochromatic.
Up on the highest rise there was a good view of the entire bay and the M/S Expedition anchored a short ways offshore.
Now we are in our short transition to Whaler’s Bay where we will see an old British Antarctic Survey base that is abandoned.
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