The penguins on the beach
Back down on the beach the fur seals were still mock fighting away to our sides. The glaciers around the beach were calving making load cracking bangs that were quickly followed by splashes as the new iceberg hit the water.
Penguins were coming and going the whole time and we watched adults being chased by their chicks before being fed. The chicks were now as big as their parents or even larger. The chicks would chase their parents right down to the water’s edge but always stopped from following into the sea.
These are the penguin highways that the Gentoo used to get up the hill to their nests above the rocks.
On the beach was the penguin highway up to the nests at the top of the hill that I’d climbed earlier.
We circled small icebergs to get a closer look at the seals asleep on them as we went back to Fram.
The good news was that getting our Muck boots and trousers clean after this landing was very easy.
Deception Island
The buffet dinner was followed by the briefing for our landing the next day on Deception Island. During the briefing we spotted the Quark expedition ship as we passed by.
Deception Island is a caldera and is so named as the entrance to the waters inside are only visible on one side of the island.
The volcano is still very active and is monitored very closely for its activity. In the past visitors would swim in holes made on the beach that once filled with water would warm up due to the rising heat. The temperatures were now so unpredictable that the water might suddenly be boiling. This danger has put paid to such fun but here would be an optional event there which was going for a swim in the water.
The newsflash at the end of the briefing was that were in for some rough seas overnight as we crossed from the Antarctic peninsula to the Deception Island.