Deception Island

It’s been an exciting day today.  We have passed the Drake passage which has been relatively quiet and peaceful.  The thing that worried me was the lack of Albatrosses.  When we first came here there was many many wandering albatrosses and I have not seen one yet.  Only a grey headed on a mission and not hanging around the ship.
 
We were right in the middle of a lecture from Steve when we saw the first iceberg.  Steve was telling us about Deception Island.  The sealers who used it as a base first and wiped out the fur seal colony, then the whalers, the cross Antarctic flight, then as a british base.  Steve is the geologist lecturer of the expedition staff.
 
When we arrived it was rather remarkable going through Neptunes Bellow.  Lots of chin straps porpoising to their colony.
 
It took a while but we landed and then it was up Remond’s hill a stroll along the beach and then up to Neptunes window.  What an amazing place.  A few Gentoos and Chinnies along the beach.  Lots of sulphur smelling smoke and cooked krill along the beach.  A skua was filling it’s beak with the Krill
 
Remarkably we saw a breaching humpback and this evening at dinner quite a few more humpbacks.


the ship because of it's x bow travels really well and because of that we didn't land at the South Shetlands but kept heading South to Deception Island.  It is a caldera with active volcanic sites.
 
All of a sudden we are in Antarctica.