MS National Geographic Explorer
Deception Island
Wednesday, February 23, 2011

    The ship continued its northeastern course throughout the night and we arrived off Deception Island first thing this morning. We first checked out the conditions at Baily Head for a possible landing. As is the usual case, the surf surge was too great to chance a landing. We might get onto the beach, but getting off would be a different matter. Even the chinstrap penguins were staying on shore for the most part.

    We stayed off shore of Baily Head for some time while we viewed the huge chipstrap colony covering the beaches and the many hillsides. It is also very impressive to see so many of these black and white flightless birds in one area.

    The ship then sailed around to Neptune's Bellows and entered Port Foster and Whaler's Bay. The captain positioned the ship so that the bow was nearly on shore and dropped anchor. Even though we were so close, we used Zodiacs to cover the short distance over the 33 F water to land on shore.

    I've visited Whaler's Bay several previous times, so there was not much new. However, the weather and light are always a little different, so the same old things can take on new appearances. Last year, Bob Smith got what I consider the definitive black and white images of the old abandoned watering boats that are very slowly disintegrating on shore, so I needed to try something a bit different. There are some brightly-colored lichen (green, red, and orange) that are growing on the boats, so I tried imaging the boats in color and working with the exposures to emphasize that little bit of color in a basically monochromatic world.

    There were the usual three or four penguins on shore; a couple of gentoos and a couple of chinstraps. Along with the penguins, there were about seven fairly active Antarctic fur seals and one beautiful, healthy, but lethargic Weddell seal.

    Whaler's Bay was also where we conducted the Polar Plunge for those hardy soles crazy enough to strip down and dunk themselves in the near freezing water. It was truly a polar plunge today since the tide was in and the volcanic fumaroles were not active. No, I'm not that crazy! I'll watch and photograph the other fools.

    At lunchtime, we all boarded the ship and together we cruised back out through Neptune's Bellows and re-established our northeastern heading. We will cruise all night and plan to arrive at Elephant Island in the morning.