Antarctica Journal 6, December 22, 2013 – Deception Island (Part 2)

Nigel, our guide from New Zealand, described today’s destination as a ring-shaped island, about 8 miles in diameter, enclosing a large harbor called Port Foster. It is the largest of three volcanic centers in the South Shetlands. The eruption that formed the caldera occurred about 10,000 years ago, but the volcano has remained particularly active and is still classified as restless with significant risk.


The ship entered through what they called Neptune’s Bellows, a wide passageway into the body of water enclosed by the volcano. To our right, Nigel excitedly pointed out a shipwreck, an overturned, rusty French ship named Telefon, which has been lying there since the early 1900’s.


The waves were rough and the wind a bit chilly. Our landing wasn’t easy. The black sand beach was a welcome sight, however. For the first time, we walked on long stretches without ice; we had volcanic ash instead, which was easier to walk on. Well, it’s not totally without ice – this was Antarctica, after all – but it was at least only on some patches, and thinner at that. Rhodora and I walked leisurely; this was our only chance to do so. While waiting for us to catch up, Jason playfully lied down and tried to make an ice angel.



The beach leads up to a gentle slope to the rim of a crater. We stopped to pose for a family picture, and later walked to right side to get a better view. It was gigantic hole, certainly bigger than our Mt. Pinatubo, which the family hiked up in 2006. Funny, it reminded me of a football stadium, magnified many times over. Our guides, Jonathan and Niko, welcomed us at the rim. Niko seemed especially pleased, perhaps, having seen us limp our way back from yesterday’s snowshoeing. “These two are still alive,” he probably told himself. The guides walked back with Rhodora and me to the beach. Jesse, Juliene, and Jason wanted to hike the longer, more scenic route, but ran out of time and were forced to go down to the beach earlier than they wished. (Something interesting: there was a family of chinstrap penguins walking on the shore. They were about to cross our path, but stopped. We stopped, too, wanting to give them the right of way. Some of us pulled out cameras. I didn’t know if the chinstraps saw that, but as soon as my colleagues began setting up, the chinstraps ran beyond camera range! “Nope, nope. No pictures, please!!!)   


Read about seals, chinstrap penguins and how our kids took the polar plunge in my Antarctica Journal 6 (Part 3).

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