The South Shetlands are a 540 km-long string of islands laying across the southern end of the Drake Passage, separated from the Antarctic Penninsula by the Bransfield Strait. These are the warmest, wettest and most colourful part of Antarctica. Deception Island is one of 11 main islands and is the largest of three recently active volcanic centers in the South Shetlands. We entered Telefon Bay by way of the narrow entrance known as Neptune's Bellows.
A hike up to one of the craters on the island was the objective of our first landing. What a completely different landscape! Such a stark contrast to what I have seen so far. It felt as though I was walking on the moon.
The crater was actually quite impressive; at first it seemed as though we were jst walking up a big hill and then all of the sudden I was peering over the edge of this enormous crater! Quite a long ways down if one was to misstep.
I spent some time wandering around and I even found some plants! It looked to be similar to the coastal nassauvia I was seeing on the Falkland Islands. The film crew had asked me to keep an eye out for any kind of plant life in order to be able to document it for their film....Daniella Rubeling -- botanist extraordinaire! (?)
After making back onto the ship, we moved quickly over to Pendulum Cove, named by the Foster Expedition of 1829, when pendulum and magnetic experiments were conducted there. Pendulum Cove is reputed to have "warm" water, and a few other passengers thought they might take this opportunity for a polar plunge. The rumour of warmer waters was slightly misleading...
Due to geothermal activity, the water right at the shore's edge was actually very warm. But move your big toe about 4 inches deeper and you're back to approximately 1 degree water! I decided that one day of polar swimming was enough and I contented myself with watching a few others take their plunge.
We made our way back to the ship and before lunch we passed through Neptune's Bellows once more. Just as we were going through the narrowest stretch, three humpback whales were spotted hanging out near the surface of the water -- aka logging. Fantastic! We cruised around them for quite some time with the ship...getting so close! More chinstrap penguins were porpoising nearby. We even got to see some tail! And to top it off, I can now say I know how to identify whale poop! A big krill-coloured (pinkish) expulsion.....
Now, after a nice bowl of soup, I'm getting a little sleepy and am ready for a little nap. Then I'll head back up to the bridge for some whale spotting!
No comments:
Post a Comment