The RRS Ernest Shackleton departed Stanley, Falkland Islands, on Saturday heading for Rothera Base on the Antarctic Peninsula. The cruise across the the Drake Passage was pretty uneventful and mostly calm, for a change.On the way down we passed our sister ship the James Clark Ross heading north about halfway across in fading late one evening and gave eachother a toot on the horn as we rushed by of our respective missions.
We arrived off Deception Island early on Tuesday morning and slipped into the narrow entrance passage on one broken side of this huge volcanic crater as the sun was rising. This protected bay used to be used by whalers as a safe haven from bad weather and also as a processing and storage station for all the whaling products. There are some remains left behind of the whaling era and also a collapsed old building that used to be base of sorts.
Parts of the volcano erupted in the sixties which forced the evcuation of the base. Nowadays there are only summer bases run by the Spanish and Argentinians.
The Island is often used as stopover by tourists ships affording them the opportunity to go and swim in waters heated still heated by the volcano.
Anyway herewtih some pics of our day out in the Volcano:
Gentoo Penguin chicks
Purser testing the oven
Biscoe House crumbling away
Some beached Whales lolling in the warm volcanic waters
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