The Endeavour arrived off aptly-named Deception Island during breakfast. This island is essentially a giant caldera...a multiple volcanic structure which has collapsed into its central underground magma chamber after the molten material had receded deeper into the Earth. It is deceptive because it has this inner harbor that could be easily missed. Think of a donut with one small bite taken out of the ring. We saw the same structure in the Galapagos aboard the Polaris. It measures more than nine miles in diameter and is still volcanically active (thermal activity can be observed at numerous places around the island). Deception has erupted at least nine times in the past two centuries, including three recent eruptions (1967, 1969, and 1970), the last of which destroyed both the British and Chilean research stations once located here. However, two stations (one Argentine and the other Spanish) still remain.

We were unable to land on the outer coastline due to rough seas, so we missed the chinstrap colony that is there, but we did make two other landings at Telefon Bay and Whalers Bay. To get there we had a great sail into the flooded caldera center (called Port Foster) through the dramatic narrow entrance known as Neptune's Bellows.

Our morning site was Telefon Bay (named for a ship), near the head of the Port Foster. We had a lovely hike up a long sloping hill to a series of recently formed craters (1967) now partially flooded by melt-water. There were lots of little stone piles scattered about from basaltic bombs that have been fractured by freeze/thaw action. From the higher vantage of the crater rim, we looked into the crater and saw the glacial face of the Deception Island ice cap. It is covered and inter-layered with black ash, so quite different from what we have been seeing.

Our afternoon stop was just inside the entrance to Port Foster at Whalers Bay. Here we saw the  remains of an abandoned shore-based Norwegian whaling station that operated from 1910 to 1931. The site was later taken over by the British during WWII, and after the war it continued as a BAS (British Antarctic Survey) station until its destruction by a volcanic eruption in 1970. From this site, We hiked up to a break in the crater's edge called Neptune's Window, where we held on for dear life in the strong winds to get some fabulous views. We spent a lot of time strolling around the various buildings and debris left from the almost 100 years of use the island has seen.

The weather was a bit on the dismal side for our visit to Deception Island, and yet with all the destruction and debris, it fit the mood perfectly.