“The most dangerous worldviews are the worldviews of those who never viewed the world.”
…Alexander von Humboldt
The Prussian explorer, geographer, naturalist, and polymath (1769 – 1859) lived during Europe’s Romantic period. His works set the stage for the field of biogeography. Thru extensive travel and research in the Americas, he sought to combine branches of science and culture to create a view of the world as one interconnected system yet a component of a holistic universe. He was one of the first to propose that South America and Africa were once joined and to describe climate change caused by humans. Humboldt had a significant influence on Darwin and his scientific journey on the Beagle. Humboldt was a role model. Darwin carried several volumes of Humboldt’s works with him on his Beagle journey, for both inspiration and guidance.
The quote resonates with discussions we’ve had among our small group of travelers. We are concerned and saddened by the increasing amplitude and number of nationalistic epicenters led by nearsighted leaders who can’t see beyond their borders – geographically or culturally. Acquiring or keeping power is the key driver. Yet, we are encouraged and optimistic that, at the populist level, more people are traveling and striving to be a citizen of the world. Nothing beats travel to explore areas unknown to get a worldview. So, we muse about our current explorer trip, fashioning ourselves as wannabe Humboldts or Darwins, exploring the edge of civilizations as we know it, albeit from a berth of comfort and luxury.
An overnight camping-on-ice experience had to be canceled because it was too warm. Since it was late in the summer, with record-breaking high temperatures in the campsite area, most of the snow had melted, and the ice field was pitted with pools of slush. As evidence, the highest temperature ever recorded was 65 degrees Fahrenheit, two weeks earlier, on February 7, 2020, at the Argentine Research Station Esperanza in Hope Bay, just a short distance northeast from Orne Island.
Argentine Station
The journey continues as we leave Danco and Orne Islands along the Errera Channel– continuing northeast along the northern shores of the Antarctic Peninsula, towards our next destination, the Falkland Islands, with a stop and landing at Deception Island.
Sailing the Errera Channel served up spectacular scenes of the peninsula coastline, with the setting sun delivering postcard-grade views during dinner.
Dinner with a surreal view
View of Danco Island at sunset
As night set, we exited the channel and the leeward side protection provided by the Brabant Island and moved into open seas. The night delivered rough seas and very high winds. We were frequently awakened by loud bangs, as the ship shuddered when its hull slapped down in the trough, after launching off the peak of a high wave. Trips to the head during the night were a challenge, hanging on to anything available and bouncing off the walls. How long could I wait before I had no choice but to make the trip? The answer falls into the category of TMI!
The light of dawn gave us a view of the rough seas and a low, grey cloud cover. The captain announced that we would be arriving at Deception Island shortly but that it was not clear whether we could make a landing. We were encountering winds of more than 50 mph.
Approaching Neptune’s Bellows entrance to Deception Island Caldron
Deception Island, part of the South Shetland Islands, is located South-West of the main islands. It was formed between 8,300 BC and 4,000 BC when a volcano’s mantle collapsed. The volcano, with a base of about 18 miles in diameter, rose about 4,600 above the seafloor to a height of 1,800 feet above sea level. Current estimates are that more than 2.2 million cubic feet of magma erupted before the collapse of the mantle, which created the caldera. The horseshoe-shaped, 9.3-mile diameter caldron was flooded with seawater entering through an opening in the rim, Neptune’s Bellows. The volcano continues to be very active, with 20 events occurring during the last 200 years. The most recent eruptions in 1967, 1969 and 1970, caused damage to permanent structures on the island. As recently as 2014 and 2015, notable volcanic activities were a reminder that a significant eruption could occur at any moment. It raises concern for scientists, support people, and tourists that ‘it might blow’ at any moment. Being brave, we took our chances!
Deception Island on a clear day
Map of Deception Island
A British sealer first discovered the island in 1820. He never noticed the opening, so he just listed it as an ordinary island. Later that same year, an American sealer, Palmer, discovered the narrow entrance, Neptune’s Bellows. He named the island “Deception Island” because while it appears to be a typical island, inside was a safe harbor providing shelter to ships from the harsh winds and seas reaching across the Southern Atlantic Ocean. This safe port accelerated the sealing industry.
The entrance is so small and disguised that early sailors had difficulty locating the opening. Once having survived the entry through Neptune’s Bellows, they found a natural, safe harbor that offered relief from the harsh winds and seas from the Atlantic Ocean. The discovery launched the lucrative seal fur business, bringing up to 100 ships into Whaler’s Bay. The seal business had a short life, as the seals were hunted to near extinction by 1825. The island was ignored by humans until 1904 when the whaling industry, centered in South Georgia, sought to reach further away from home base. A fleet of hunting ships accompanied a factory ship to process whales that were towed alongside by the whale hunters. These factory ships needed to be moored to process these mammoth marine mammals. Whalers’ Bay, inside Deception Island’s caldron, offered the perfect conditions for these factories. At times, more than ten factory ships were in full operation, with the crews living in temporary accommodations onshore.
Processing a whale alongside whale factory ship
The factory ships would strip the fat from the whales that were tied alongside–cutting, pulling, and hoisting the sheets of fat off the sides of the whales. Once stripped of this outer blubber, thousands of carcasses were abandoned to an ad hoc graveyard along the shore. More than 40% of the available oil from each whale was wasted. To extract more oil, a Norwegian company constructed an onshore processing factory to process the carcasses, which was highly profitable. This onshore facility was short-lived. The 1920s brought online a new class of factory ships, equipped with slipways, enabling them to drag the whole whale onboard for processing without needing to be anchored. They would follow the whale hunting fleet, like a mother ship, to handle the kills underway without needing to set their anchor. By 1931, the Deception Island factory was shut down and abandoned, ending the whaling era for the island.
The island stayed abandoned until 1944 when the British built a research station (Base B) in Whaler’s Bay, as part of a British WWII military mission. The construction of the British site was followed by an Argentine station in 1948 and then a Chilean station in 1955. I believe that the research stations were but a guise to reflect the conflicting territorial claims of the island by the three countries. The Antarctica Treaty of 1959 resolved the conflict, by removing all nations’ claims. As a result, the British removed their station as required by the treaty, but the Argentine and Chilean bases remained. The volcanic activities in 1967 damaged these bases, which forced them to evacuate all personnel. They restored the stations for research but only for use during the summer months. There is no permanent crew on the station. Deception Island is a popular tourist stop for cruise ships and tour operators.
Our ship, the MS Roald Amundsen, is one that will be calling today. Our captain announced that we were approaching the 755-foot wide entrance to the caldera–Neptune’s Bellows. I went topside to watch our entry. The weather was ugly; the cloud ceiling was only a couple of hundred feet above the choppy water. Most features were unrecognizable, shrouded in fog and clouds. Navigating the entrance was tricky. In the center of the opening, 8 feet below the water surface, rests a significant hazard, Raven’s Rock. It has claimed several ships over the years. Our boat will need to enter by hugging the rock cliffs on our starboard side, only about 200 feet to our side. The visibility was terrible. The tops of the cliffs were in the clouds. Not much to see, and even less to photograph.
Norwegian whaling factory on the beach of Deception Island
Debri from a destroyed research station
As we exited Neptune’s Bellows, Whaler’s Bay to the starboard was the safe harbor for the whaling factory ships. We could barely make out the remains of the whale oil factory. The fog made everything look black and white…no colors. We proceeded into Port Foster and made way to Pendulum Cove, our intended landing site. It was frigid, with snow and ice flurries, along with a 35-mph wind. A decision re the excursion would be made after an advance team scouted the landing beach.
35 mph wind along the beach of Deception Island
We could hardly see the Kodiak as it faded in the fog close to land. A half-hour later, we received clearance for a landing with several restrictions. Weather conditions were harsh, visibility limited, and there were very high gusts of wind. The expedition team staked out a path, using red flags 25 feet apart to mark the trail we needed to follow. It was a circular path about ¼ mile in diameter, on the black, volcanic cinder-like ‘beach’ adjacent to our landing site. The cloud cover and fog restricted visibility. There would be no ad hoc walks or wandering about today.
Walking the beach
We could see the ruins of the Chilean Station Pedro Agkure Cenda. It was destroyed by the volcanic eruption in 1967. Under the 1956 Antarctic Treaty, all structures and equipment must be removed once a station is no longer active. The cost of dismantling and hauling away all debris is very costly. To avoid this cost, Chile finagled to have it declared a Historical Site and Monuments in the Antarctic under the Antarctic Treaty System. The British used this same mechanism to avoid the cost of dismantling most of their 26 deactivated bases in Antarctica. It would have been interesting to get a closer look at the ‘monument’, aka Chilean debris.
Yup! It’s HOT!
Hot water seeps up from the depths of the volcano. As evidence, one of the guides dug a shallow hole in the sand. It filled with hot water from natural hot springs seeping up from below. I’m not sure of the exact temperature, but it felt hot to the touch–not one I’d simmer in as a thermal hot tub (see the photo below from another expedition).
A an improvised hot tup – Deception Island spa
Early afternoon we set sail for the Falkland Islands. We followed the South Shetland islands to our port side until we were dead south of our final destination before we took a channel through the islands into the Drake Passage. Tomorrow will be a sea day, arriving in Stanley the day after tomorrow.
With a glass of wine in hand, it was an opportunity to reflect what we had seen and experienced during the past 12 days. It is a spectacular region of Earth. On the one hand, everyone should experience this continent, yet too much tourism could easily harm the eco-system. I came to realize that humans have had a greater impact than I expected. As you can see in the chart below, there are presently 70 permanent research stations, representing 29 countries, dotting the continent. Really! How many research stations do we need for scientific purposes? Granted that while all 29 countries are signatories of the 1959 treaty and thus relinquished territory rights, the playing field just shifted to the scientific or intellectual ‘territorial’ ambitions of these countries. I can’t reconcile the treaty’s intent to preserve the wellbeing of the continent, given a large number of active facilities along with the debris from abandoned stations scattered throughout.
How many research stations do we need?
So, we’ve left Antarctica behind, but fantastic memories will continue to bring back the awe and spirit we experienced. It exceeded all my expectations!
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