Our first landing was on Deception Island which is south of the South Shetland Islands and north of the Antarctic Peninsula. Our landing was in Whaler’s Bay which is an old volcanic caldera where one side of the caldera collapsed and let in the sea. It’s round and the rock is very volcanic. The entrance to the bay is through Neptune’s Bellows which is a narrow opening where the wind really howls.

Deception Island was the home to many whaling ships starting as early as 1905. Later, it also housed whale processing factories for many years. That ended when the volcano erupted between 1967 and 1969 and mudslides destroyed the factories.

The first photo is from the deck of our ship as we awaited our turn to go ashore. The Antarctic Treaty and agreements with the tour operators and all countries involved in Antarctica only allows 100 tourists at a time to be on the entire continent. All the buildings on shore are remains from the whale processing factories.

In the second photo, you can see me scribbling some journal notes. The people in the brightly colored coats are part of our expedition staff. If you look at our landing spot on the bay, you can see the steam from the geothermal heated water. The water wasn’t scalding to the touch, but it was very hot. A few people went swimming in the bay right next to the hot water outlet. The air temperature wasn’t that cold on the ground (about 32 degrees F) but it was raining at times with some sleet as well.

The third photo was the first penguin that we saw. This is a Gentoo penguin and a very fat one at that. My guess is that he just gorged himself with krill and is waiting for digestion to happen. I also threw this photo in so you could see the ground which was mostly crushed red and black volcanic rock.