Chronic Negress

It’s Wednesday, but it could be any day and it has been day pretty much since we left Ushuaia.

We – actually Captain Alexei, fresh from a sauna with the Ukrainians – navigated the channel into Port Foster on Deception Island. The island is a caldera, a large depression left by volcanic eruption, and it still cooling and erupting on about a 40-year cycle. There’s a chinstrap penguin rookery at the top of the island, and the buildings, tanks and other artifacts from a whaling station there that operated through the 20s. Not surprisingly, the bay is named Whaler’s Bay.

remains of whaling station on Deception Island

There were a few chinstraps on shore, but this morning was a wet and wild one. Besides the kayakers taking a nice tour of the bay, it was also time for the Polar Plunge, for which people stripped out of parkas, waterproof pants and other layers down to bathing suits and dove in off the black sand beach. All those who did it loved it and had their pictures immortalized on the wall by the purser’s office at lunch.

Our last landing of the trip will be at Half Moon Island in the South Shetlands before we headed back into the Drake Passage to Ushuaia. There were more chin

Seal lazing on Deception Island

straps at Half Moon as well as one lazing seal. I walked up to a low ridge (plantar fasciitis update: Still the same. Doctor’s intervention may finally be needed) and looked around at some of the rookeries. We caught the Zodiacs back to the boat, washed and disinfected our boots and then handed them over. I showered with my waterproof pants and realized that our time here was about to end. We entered the Drake Passage later in the evening. The ride was rough, but not nearly as bad as when we came down. I had lost track of the days. So I pretty much packed up everything, forgetting we had two more days to go before returning to Ushuaia.