Deception Island

Deception Island

We arrived early in the morning off the Needles Rocks and landed our guests ashore in the midst of a huge Chin Strap Penguin colony. One of the biggest here with around 150,000 nesting pairs!

After that quite smelly stroll we moved inside the Extinct (We hoped) Volcano Crater, although the beaches still steam and the water just under the surface of the sand is very hot.

We anchored very close off the shore. In fact the stern was about 20m off the shallows! Deception was an old Whaling station in the 19th and 20th century's . Part of the cause of the destruction to the Southern whale population. Which was immense but in the end it was the factory ships in the 1930's that really killed off the populations of whales. However Deception is also the place that when stranded Shackleton could not get to. This was due to it being up wind. But only 130nm, away, however still impossible and so he instead did his famous trip to Elephant Island and South Georgia to the whaling stations there. an open boat trip of over 1800nm. Considerably further and although mostly downwind it was across the Southern oceans much larger seas.

Photo by Richard Drone Smith