Wednesday 10 February

Antarctica Day 5 – Deception Island & Half Moon Island

We woke this morning at 5.45am to a clear blue sky and a Fin Whale swimming past the ship. Lesley was one of the few, if only one, to get this photo, identification later confirmed by the naturalists. This Fin Whale is one of the largest whales in the world.

This morning’s early rise was due to us having to have had breakfast and be ready for an 8am departure to inspect the old whaling station/1940s British Expedition/survey base. The remains consist of rusty oil tanks, a number of wooden buildings, an aircraft hangar, machinery, and old wooden whaler boats.

On approaching Deception Is, we noticed another ship the “Ocean Explorer” sitting outside the entrance to Port Forster. It went into the bay as we approached and from our observations whilst on the island, the Ocean Explorer appeared to just cruise around the bay without stopping.

Port Foster is the well-protected bay inside Deception Island. The Bay is the result of the island being the rim of a volcano which last erupted in 1991-2. The beach is black volcanic rock/ash.

The British no longer have a base in the bay, but both Spain and Argentina have bases further around the bay from where the remains of the British base is located.

Although we were supposed to return to the ship after 90 minutes, we were on the island for two hours having looked at the various buildings which still stand, climbed a peak overlooking the bay and walked a kilometre or two along the beach where we saw numerous Antarctic fur seals and our first pair of Chin Strap Penguins, right where we were to board the zodiac to return to the ship.

chin strap penguins in for a visit

steam rising near the shore once the tide dropped as we were leaving. It is still a very active volcanic area.

Over lunch the ship cruised north-east to Half Moon Island where it stopped and we were given another 90 minutes to explore the Chin Strap Penguin colony and look at the numerous Fur Seals and Weddell seals.

This little chap was a real poser. You could almost picture the donation box in front - gold coin for a photo!

The Argentine Govt has set up a station on the island and two of their naval ships were anchored in the bay when we arrived. One ships was a two masted cadet training sloop whilst the other was a re-supply cargo carrier. A small barge appeared to be taking gear and men off the island and out to the resupply ship, as more men appeared to be on the barge on its return from the island than on the way in. The resupply ship left not long before our ship started on its way back to Ushuaia, with a stop in the Chilian port of Port William to resupply.

Argentine base near where we landed

We got off the ship in clear blue sky and little wind, so the temperature had risen to about 4°. Stuart didn’t use his outer gloves or walking stick. Lesley to start off wore a set of gloves and three layers of clothing. As we stayed longer on the island, Lesley took off her gloves, and inner and outer jackets and tied these around her waist.

Stuart is sitting on a 100 yr old jawbone for a fin whale, the same type of whale Lesley photographed this morning.

In among the Chin Straps we were shown a solitary Macaroni Penguin. The Macaroni Penguins are distinguishable by their yellow head feathers. This one has been coming here for years – an individual with an identity crisis!!