All evening as we’d been eating dinner, Dad and I had been staring out the window as icebergs and behemoths of stone slipped past. We were headed for Deception Island, with plans to watch the sunset there as well as checking out the old whaling station in the aptly named Whalers Bay.
We didn’t land on Deception Island, but we cruised through Neptune’s Bellows and into the “safest harbour in Antarctica” as the sun sank below the horizon. Deception Island is actually caldera, and volcanic activity there caused some damage to the scientific stations in the late 1960’s. It was still and calm when we arrived, belying it’s eruptive past. The sky blazed orange and peach, a stark contrast to the monochrome ash and snow patterns on the mountains.
Everyone was out on deck or on the Bridge, watching as the Captain expertly planted the bow into the shore at Whaler’s Bay, where the remnants of the old whaling station are slumped about. Steam rose from the pebbled beaches, and a few seals lay around like driftwood logs. We were briefed on the history of the area over the PA system while we marvelled at the landscape and the station – still standing after nearly a century, if a little wonky in places.
I was photographing like mad, pushing my ISO higher and higher as the sun vanished and the ice dulled from fiery pink to a slaty blue. Landscape photography isn’t a strength of mine, but the colours, textures and patterns were too good to miss.
It was a perfect way to end our first day on the Peninsula, after the muddy excitement of the Hannah Point landing. Cruising in chill winds through a painted landscape as the sun went down, there was a sense of peace that tingled with the anticipation of what was still to come.
