Antarctica Day 4

62°36.000'S, 059°55.000'W, Half Moon Island

62°58.940'S, 060°33.621'W, Whaler's Bay, Deception Island

Today we were up early to see land, the South Shetland Islands and our first two shore stops. 

The first stop was at Half Moon Island. With 10 persons per zodiac, we load on, wearing our bright yellow jackets, waterproof pants, muck boots, hats, gloves and PFDs to be shuttled to the island.

Here we walked and hiked around the island. There are colonies of Chinstrap and Gentoo Penguins as well as sea birds, plus lots of fur seals who are either too juvenile or just not successful in mating this season. The penguins are molting so for some their feathers look fuzzy and in need of a good brushing. Most of the chicks are grown. We watched them shuffling down to the water then swimming and jumping out of the water similar to dolphins. Then they would shuffle back up to their spots on the rocks. It was snowing so sometimes they would slip and fall on their faces, get up, shake and start again. As we walked across the island to look at some whale bones, some of the seals would start to chase us and we would clap our hands or raise our arms in the air to make ourselves look big and they would stop. The penguins are black and white, the snow is white, the rocks are black so many of my pictures are not very colorful.

Back to the boat for lunch and our next stop, Whaler's Bay on Deception Island. The island was formed by a volcano and the bay is in the caldera. The last eruption was in 1969. The water along the shore is actually warmer in some places so the volcano is not completely dormant. The entrance to the bay, called Neptune's Bellows, is through a break in the caldera, through a narrow passage along a rock cliff. Inside we saw a charter sailboat at anchor that we had seen in Puerto Williams. The bay was a site for whaling factories to process the carcasses. Some of the building still remain as well as an airplane hanger and a cemetary. We walked around the site and then a smaller break in the caldera known as Neptune's Window, for a view outside the bay plus a high point overlooking where the Sea Spirit was anchored.

Now we are heading to the Antarctic peninsula and tomorrow we will step on the seventh continent.

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