Deception Island (South Shetland Archipelago) & Bransfield Strait
Today was a real Antarctic experience and it helped us better appreciate the exploits of Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen, Nordenskjold, Larsen, Mawson, Charcot, and all the other explorers of the Heroic Age that we admire so much.
We spent the morning at the aptly-named island of Deception, which got this name from the fact that it is actually a giant caldera…that is, an island composed of multiple volcanic structures which has collapsed into its central underground magma chamber after the molten material below receded deeper into the Earth. Deception Island measures more than nine miles in diameter and is still volcanically active (thermal activity can often be observed at numerous places around the island). During breakfast, we sailed right inside the flooded caldera center (called Port Foster) through a narrow and dramatic collapsed section of the rim known as Neptune’s Bellows. Port Foster extends nearly six miles in length and is pretty much hidden from view to vessels passing by the island and it provides a very protected anchorage even in the worst conditions.
Our time ashore at Deception Island proved to be a most exciting adventure, as we landed in Whalers Bay during a blizzard with gale force winds. Here, one can see the remains of an abandoned shore-based Norwegian whaling station that operated from 1910 to 1931. The site was later taken over by the British during WWII in order to observe German shipping operations, and after the war continued as a BAS station until its destruction by a volcanic eruption in 1969. Deception has erupted at least nine times in the past two centuries, including three recent eruptions (1967, 1969, and 1970) which destroyed both the British and Chilean research stations once located here. Two stations, one Argentine and the other Spanish, still remain.
In spite of the weather, people were still very eager to go ashore and explore this amazing island. Many of us hiked along the shoreline over to a break in the crater’s edge called Neptune’s Window, where we got a beautiful view of the small bay just below the window, and experienced a strong, vertical wind rushing up the outside wall and through the window’s gap. Some people even continued much farther and higher up into the ash-covered hills of the interior before returning to the landing area to investigate the ruins of the old whaling station. It is hard to imagine what the place must have been like while it was in operation those many years ago, with its whaling ships, bloody slipways, whale carcasses, smoking boilers (see image, above left), and soot-covered men. Fortunately, that’s all just history now.
Sometimes, the shallow, coastal water of Whalers Bay is heated by volcanic fumeroles and creates nice swimming conditions…but not today. Even so, there were many among us who wanted to do a token swim in the shallows for bragging rights and managed some impressive splashing about just offshore.
In the afternoon, we continued southward through the Bransfield Strait on our way to the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula where we plan to spend the rest of the voyage. This waterway provided us with ample opportunities for more excellent ice photography and we had lots of fun approaching some very impressive tabular bergs. However, as we cruised along the edge of one rather extensive berg, we came around the corner and were shocked by what we saw off in the distance ahead of us.
It was the Granddaddy of all the ice bergs we had seen thus far during the expedition. Holy smokes! This thing absolutely towered over the ship when we approached it (see image, above right). We figured it must have broken off from some distant giant ice shelf like the Filchner or even Ross Ice Shelf on the other side of the continent, and then drifted here and grounded in these waters.
We continued with more scenic cruising late into the evening and many people were even out on deck after dinner enjoying the spectacular scenery.
