Deception Island

December 7th, 2009
We did our first landing on Deception Island. It is shaped kind of like a giant C, and is where a giant volcano collapsed. The last eruption was in the late 60s. The views were simply breathtaking…so, so beautiful. Plus, it was nice to be on solid ground again, even if it was just for an hour. We saw several penguins and a seal; but this area was not a real penguin rookery. They were cute though, and hopefully were not spooked by our presence. Tomorrow we are going to get on the peninsula, and we have two more landing sites to do- tomorrow morning and evening (we didn’t even make it out onto Deception Island until after 8, but since the sun rarely sets, it wasn’t a problem). I swam in the caldera, which was very cold, but very fun (actually, about the same as the Polar Plunge).
This beach also had the remains of a whaling village- complete with rusted old boilers and falling apart, decrepit houses. It was very interesting to see, because it was not entirely disintegrated into the dirt and rocks, due to the fact that it is so dry there.
Thankfully, we made it through the Drake Passage relatively unharmed, although we have the joy of returning to it for the way back ☹ Its all been totally worth it though. Hopefully in the next few days we will see even more wildlife and a large penguin rookery. We will actually land on the peninsula tomorrow, so that is very exciting.
Also, does anyone know how to add pictures on a blog like this? if you know, tell me so I can add cool pictures of penguins and icebergs.