Blog Friday 16th Dec 2022
Having made it through Neptune’s Bellows just after midnight in low light, light fog and a decent breeze, we had anchored in Stancomb Cove on the north west interior of Deception Island by around 0130 hours. Then after breakfast, a chance to hike around Cross Hill and the lower reaches of Telefon Ridge – the landscape created by the 1967 volcanic eruption calling to mind Iceland, or Mars.
Our afternoon was spent ashore in Whalers Bay, wandering amongst slowly collapsing buildings and machinery, the legacy of industrial whaling from 1906 to 1931, and of later occupation as a base for the first Antarctic flight in 1928. This was largely destroyed by a second volcanic eruption in 1969, and thermal heating of the south eastern shoreline means sulphury vapours are still emitted. The abiding impression is melancholy – abandoned and desolate, a place of whaling slaughter, their bones still visible through the water.
