November 2019 [by Bill]
Here’s the description of the Day 8 visit to South Shetland given by the tour company:
Day 8: Scenes of South Shetland
The volcanic islands of the South Shetlands are windswept and often cloaked in mist, but they do offer subtle pleasures: There’s a wide variety of flora (mosses, lichens, flowering grasses) and no small amount of fauna (gentoo penguins, chinstrap penguins, southern giant petrels). In Deception Island, the ship plunges through Neptune’s Bellows and into the flooded caldera. Here you find hot springs, an abandoned whaling station, and thousands of cape petrels – along with kelp gulls, brown and south polar skuas, and Antarctic terns. A good hike is a possibility in this fascinating and desolate volcanic landscape.
And here’s what Bill remembers:
– zodiac boat 10-minute trip to the shoreline was fairly choppy, some white caps, wind blowing some spray into the small 7 meter rubber boat
– dormant volcano
– hiked up to and around the crater
– last eruption December 4, 1967 –
– 25 MPH wind gusts
– 4 degrees
– overcast
– 4 large Weddell seals sleeping close to the water on a sheet of snow and ice
Antarctica Voyage by Bill: 2019
- The Ship
- Getting There: the Beagle Channel & the Drake Passage (Day 1 – 3)
- Antarctic Peninsula (Day 4 – 7)
- South Shetland (Day 8)
- Return Journey (Day 9 – 10)
Small Wide World 
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