1 January 2023! I woke up remarkably rested, and Dan and I had a coffee in our little lounge room before heading to breakfast. We were supposed to reach Deception Island by about 1pm today, with land siting about 11am so we wanted to be ready.
Today we had breakfast in the Aune restaurant with the buffet - I was desperate for some fruit and the fancy restaurant pretty much only does fancy eggs and bread. The breakfast buffet in Aune was well stocked! I did want to try a bit of everything but fruit was calling to me so I stuck with that. They also had a delicious apple, lemon and cucumber detox juice.
As we were finishing up we ran into Diane and her husband and had a little chat. They were telling us about a lecturer once who had spent time in a fishing trawler, and time spent living with Inuits at the top of Alaska in fishing boats with zero seasickness. Then he gets on the Drake passage and…. Had to cancel his lecture because he couldn’t get out of bed! Made me feel a bit better. We also ran into Anika and Martin - she had also been badly unwell where she even got the injection to overcome the seasickness.
Straight from breakfast we briefly stood on the back deck to see how cold it was wildly inappropriately dressed. In the distance - we spotted land! We raced to our room, donned the jackets and gloves and beanies and headed out. There in the distance, grey and white land. Penguins leaping and flying through the waves. Flocks of blue petrels flanking the boat. Dan saw a couple of whale spouts. We were really here!
It was freezing. So we went back inside, but the lure to see more sent us back out. By now we knew we were about sn hour behind schedule, with the approach of Neptunes Bellows (the entrance to Deception island) pushed back by about an hour. We went for lunch in the restaurant, I had the tasting platter and the pasta which was quite plain but sort of the flavour I was hoping for - seasickness has almost abated now, thank god.
People we gathering out front our window so we experimented with our weather proof pants and thick boots. My ski pants are too long,so I’ve had to wangle them into my boots. I do look like I have a bit of elephantiasis of the knees, and the swish as I walk, but it’s more comfortable than dragging the pant legs in the ground. I also wore the thermal top, my Latvia top and the jacket.
Outside we found a little spot that was spare / not much space left by now! And watched as we sailed through into the mouth of the caldera. This means it’s actually a volcano that has collapsed in on itself and filled with water. It is still active though, and there are patches of water and steam.
On the bow, it was quite cold. And we were being sleeted on. Wet snow! I was glad for all my layers but learnt I could wear even more. The actual temperate is about 0-1C, and Dan and I have experienced much worse, but the wind chill and the moving boat adds to the coldness. It’s not long now til the first expedition boat heads over so we return to our room.
Unfortunately the team have decided it’s too windy and unsafe to take people in the small boats to Telefon Bay, so the decision is made to try a different bay across the way. Again on arrival it was deemed too unsafe, so first landing of the day was cancelled. I’ve been feeling very ambiguous about it - on one hand I’m disappointed that we haven’t made land yet. On the other, it’s really not very nice out there and drinking a glass of wine in my stylish thermals next to our fake crackling fire is very appealing. Most people around the boat have shacked up with a wine and/or a book.
At this stage, the Whalers Bay landing should still go ahead. The caption is keeping the boat still while letting the wind die down, and then we will make our way there. Hopefully that landing does not get cancelled - it was scheduled for about 7pm anyway so we have a little time. This would also be our polar plunge… stay tuned, I’ll write more later!
9:50pm. Sadly they also decided to cancel the Whalers Bay landing due to winds too strong to get people into the little boats and to shore. Of course we are disappointed but Dan and I made the most of the evening anyway. Now we weren’t going ashore we could have a beverage! So we finished the bottle of bubbly we had opened the night before and at 6pm on the dot we raced to dinner to get a seat by the window.
At dinner, we watched as the fog, rain, snow and cloud lifted from Whalers Bay and from our prime position we were able to take a lot of lovely photos. The view was spectacular- perfect for an evening meal. Tonight we added some cab sav to the mix, and I had the bouillon with scallop soup, stir fried duck and then both Dan and I had a cheese platter for dessert which paired perfectly with our wine! We chatted to the Canadian couple a bit and I well and truly embarrassed myself, imitating a shag (or cormorant) as they sun themselves on a rock. “Can you make the sound too?” They laughed. “This is a mime-only show!” I replied and we all giggled.
From our view point we could clearly see the whalers hut and barrel ruins. What fascinated me the most was that I could clearly see green amongst the dark rock and white snow. Incredible. The scene was beautiful and it would have been lovely to be amongst it, but we respect the captions decisions.
As we slowly did a farewell tour of the inside of Deception Island, and headed out again past Neptunes Bellows, pods and pods of tiny penguins leaped and jumped in our wake. It was amazing. They were so cute. Impossible for me to photograph so I just watched them. I started joking they should be called bish. Or firds. Because they’re more fish than birds really, aren’t they?
We retired to our room to quickly get dressed again to run to the starboard bow as it was announced there were humpback whales. This time I managed to see a few spouts! They were quite in the distance but it seems there was a whole pod of them.
As the early tomorrows plan session hadn’t been added to the TV channel we decided to go to the next session in person. Tomorrow is looking promising. Of course anything could change but current predictions are very low wind, 4C which is quite warm! And excellent visibility. As we set off already early from deception island, we will land very early tomorrow, meaning there may be additional time for activities. They are already scheduling kayak groups A B and C tomorrow - unsuspected to have three in a day - which means there’s a better chance our group D will get a turn before the end of the trip!
It’s currently 10pm and the sun is well up in the sky. Dan and I are watching to see if there’s a bit of a sunset but I may have to go to sleep before that happens!
I don’t want to jinx anything so I wont go into too much detail about the plans for tomorrow. You’ll have to wait and see :)
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