After a
partly shaky night we entered into the caldera of the volcanic Deception Island
early in the morning. A spectacularly narrow passage that is further
complicated by an underwater rock called Raven Rock right in the middle of the
entrance.
The
destination for our morning landing was Whalers Bay, where we visited the
remains of the old whaling station Hector and the British Base B that was set
up by the Falkland Island Dependencies Service. The weather was not exactly perfect
– drizzling rain and a bit of wind – but it was still impressive to take a
stroll between the abandoned station buildings and the dismantled blubber
cookers. Hard to imagine that at this lonesome beach, thousands of whales were
processed. Reports of whalers tell that at some time, several hundred flensed
carcasses were floating in the caldera. The smell must have been tremendous!
As the
weather situation outside the sheltered caldera of Deception Island further
deteriorated, we decided to re-schedule our afternoon landing. Instead of
continuing towards Walker Bay at King George Island, we stayed a little longer
at Deception Island and accomplished a landing at Telephone Bay at the far end
of the caldera. We undertook a scenic walk around some crater lakes filled with
turquoise water and up a hill, from where we had a view of the entire inner
part of Deception Island.
In the late
afternoon, provisioned with sea-sickness pills, we sailed out of Deception
Island and headed into the Drake Passage.
