Day 4 - Half Moon Island and Deception Island

So, my apologies for the gap in blogging, but I was rather indisposed last evening.  They told us that the Drake Passage would be the most challenging in terms of seasickness – but personally, yesterday’s rough seas put me and a number of other passengers out of commission.  Imagine being on one of those amusement park rides that twirls round and round, or any roller coaster for that matter – it’s fun at first right?  But then you begin to feel a little queasy – not so fun anymore.  But you keep telling yourself that in about 45 seconds it will all be over.  Now imagine if you didn’t have that option ie.  the ride will never be over!  That’s about what it’s like to be seasick.  Having said that, the sights and experiences we have had in the last day and a half have made it all worthwhile.  Let’s start with yesterday’s outing.  We made a landing at Half Moon Island.  More sighting of penguins – this time, the chinstrap variety (not jockstrap as one passenger on a previous expedition thought).  And they were everywhere!  More than a few times did we have to stop for a penguin crossing.  In fact, the area we were walking had more traffic than highway 400 on a cottage weekend.  And since the novelty of simply sighting the penguins had worn off, we decided to take a walk to the other end of the island to see more fur seals and elephant seals.  This time, along with lazing around on the beach (this must be their holiday season – penguin cocktail anyone?) they were also playing in the water and what seemed to be battling for the best spot on the beach.  I guess, “Is that rock taken?” isn’t in their vocabulary. They just bang heads together until one of them moves.  So after a lot of walking around, seal spotting, and giving penguins the right of way, it was back to the ship. 

                                      Playful seals

A leisurely chat in the lounge over coffee to discuss the morning’s outing, then lunch and another outing – this time to Deception Island.  Deception Island is an active volcano (which Push was hoping would erupt since it is apparently 3 years overdue for an eruption – needless to say,  it didn’t).  But the island is covered in the black cinder and soot of past eruptions.  It also contains the remains of a whaling colony from years gone by, before authorities outlawed whaling.  So there are some wooden buildings, old wooden boats, and some large cylindrical containers which held water to be taken out to the whaling ships to produce steam.  But the whole colony looks like a ghost town, a decaying piece of history.  Unfortunately the winds were too high so we could not make a landing;  so the picture below is taken from the ship. 

              The remains of whaling settlements - Deception Island

And now you can see why some of us were a little queasy for the remainder of the evening .  Needless to say, Sue and I went straight to bed while Push, true to his nature, spent the evening in the lounge celebrating Valentine ’s Day with a few enthusiastic (and un-seasick) fellow passengers.  The next day it’s on to Wilhelmina Bay where we will remain stationary (thank goodness).

Until then