Deception Island, Antarctica
Our 7:30 wake-up call came at 6:00 A.M., but who can complain when the cause is whales? Not just whales, but three species of whales visible at the same time: we were surrounded by the tall, columnar blows of fin whales, the shorter, bushier blows of humpback whales, and the puffs of killer whales (AKA orca.) We were in the Bransfield Straits, heading for our destination of Deception Island when the whales interrupted our progress – a fine beginning to our day. Ahead was Baily Head, on the outer coast of Deception Island. It is perhaps our most challenging landing, but well worth the effort. Our Zodiacs skim to shore atop an incoming wave; we “sit and spin” and scramble up a steep beach of black volcanic cinders as four boatmen spin the Zodiac and send it out for another group. The attraction of Baily Head: a huge nesting colony of chinstrap penguins. They wait to greet us on the beach (actually, they pretty much ignored us), together with a group of Antarctic fur seals. Files of parading penguins trudging resolutely, some coming, some going, marked the path to the colony. As we rounded a rocky corner to gaze up at the colony, we gasped in amazement at the heights scaled by the penguins to reach their waiting, hungry young. Back and forth go the penguin parents, up to the young, back to the sea for more food, perhaps two round trips in each day. It takes all of the efforts of the two parents to successfully raise their one or two chicks. Some of the young are nearing the end of their growth. They are now nearly as large as their parents, with adult-type feathers replacing their juvenile down. Other chicks are still completely clad in down; it will require a lot more krill and fish to complete the task. Failed breeders – adults who have lost their young, perhaps to marauding skuas - are now well into the post breeding molt in which they replace all of their feathers. Groups of molting birds seek out areas protected from the wind, and there they stand in a veritable snowstorm of molted feathers. They cannot return to the ocean to feed until the process is complete.
We departed Baily Head and passed through Neptune’s Bellows, the narrow entrance into the flooded caldera of this volcanic island. The volcano that formed Deception Island is not extinct or dormant; just quiescent, waiting for the next eruptive event. The previous was in 1967/68/70. Steam generated by volcanic heat rose through the black cinders around the shore of Whalers’ Bay as we landed. Some took a stroll along the beach, past the remains of early 20th-Century shore-based whaling camps marked by piles of unused barrel staves, to reach Neptune’s Window and look across the Bransfield Straits towards the Antarctic Peninsula. Others wandered through the remains of the whaling station that was established in 1912 and closed in 1931. In 1944 became a base for scientists and support personnel of the British Antarctic Survey; it was abandoned after the eruption of 1968. We paused to contemplate the thousands of whales that were killed in Antarctic seas – about 50,000 in the South Shetlands alone – and compare that thought with the scene that greeted us early this morning … even as some nations actively seek a resumption of commercial whaling in the oceans of the world, including Antarctica.
Our 7:30 wake-up call came at 6:00 A.M., but who can complain when the cause is whales? Not just whales, but three species of whales visible at the same time: we were surrounded by the tall, columnar blows of fin whales, the shorter, bushier blows of humpback whales, and the puffs of killer whales (AKA orca.) We were in the Bransfield Straits, heading for our destination of Deception Island when the whales interrupted our progress – a fine beginning to our day. Ahead was Baily Head, on the outer coast of Deception Island. It is perhaps our most challenging landing, but well worth the effort. Our Zodiacs skim to shore atop an incoming wave; we “sit and spin” and scramble up a steep beach of black volcanic cinders as four boatmen spin the Zodiac and send it out for another group. The attraction of Baily Head: a huge nesting colony of chinstrap penguins. They wait to greet us on the beach (actually, they pretty much ignored us), together with a group of Antarctic fur seals. Files of parading penguins trudging resolutely, some coming, some going, marked the path to the colony. As we rounded a rocky corner to gaze up at the colony, we gasped in amazement at the heights scaled by the penguins to reach their waiting, hungry young. Back and forth go the penguin parents, up to the young, back to the sea for more food, perhaps two round trips in each day. It takes all of the efforts of the two parents to successfully raise their one or two chicks. Some of the young are nearing the end of their growth. They are now nearly as large as their parents, with adult-type feathers replacing their juvenile down. Other chicks are still completely clad in down; it will require a lot more krill and fish to complete the task. Failed breeders – adults who have lost their young, perhaps to marauding skuas - are now well into the post breeding molt in which they replace all of their feathers. Groups of molting birds seek out areas protected from the wind, and there they stand in a veritable snowstorm of molted feathers. They cannot return to the ocean to feed until the process is complete.
We departed Baily Head and passed through Neptune’s Bellows, the narrow entrance into the flooded caldera of this volcanic island. The volcano that formed Deception Island is not extinct or dormant; just quiescent, waiting for the next eruptive event. The previous was in 1967/68/70. Steam generated by volcanic heat rose through the black cinders around the shore of Whalers’ Bay as we landed. Some took a stroll along the beach, past the remains of early 20th-Century shore-based whaling camps marked by piles of unused barrel staves, to reach Neptune’s Window and look across the Bransfield Straits towards the Antarctic Peninsula. Others wandered through the remains of the whaling station that was established in 1912 and closed in 1931. In 1944 became a base for scientists and support personnel of the British Antarctic Survey; it was abandoned after the eruption of 1968. We paused to contemplate the thousands of whales that were killed in Antarctic seas – about 50,000 in the South Shetlands alone – and compare that thought with the scene that greeted us early this morning … even as some nations actively seek a resumption of commercial whaling in the oceans of the world, including Antarctica.
