The Land That Time Forgot

We entered Deception Island on March 16, through its only navigatable entrance called Neptune’s Bellows. The entire island is an ancient volcanic caldera. Pressure held the roof up, and when the eruption ceded, the roof collapsed, leaving a ring-shaped island with a narrow entrance. The island ring is composed of high mountains, bluffs, and volcanic craters that still do erupt. One eruption occurred in 1967, creating a mud flow that destroyed a Chilean and a British research station. The last major eruption was in 1970, but there is considerable seismic activity all of the time.

On the outside of Deception Island is a large chinstrap penguin colony, but no place to safely land the Zodiacs. Inside were fewer penguins (they don’t like the warmer water), but many fur seals, and the remains of an old whale processing plant. Beaches of lava cinders were all around, and the water’s edge steamed and smelt of sulpher. Hot water flows down through the beach and into the cold water of the bay.  

When I was a young teen, two of my favorite authors were Jules Verne (creator of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ) and Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of the Tarzan series and many other works of science fiction. One of his books, called The Land That Time Forgot took place during World War I, and told of an unknown continent near Antarctica that was inaccessible from the outside, except for an underwater tunnel. It was the remnant of an ancient volcano whose roof collapsed, but instead of penguins, seals, and whaling stations, it contained dinosaurs and half-naked cave women. Jules Verne told of Captain Nemo’s secret island, and the description was word-for-word from the writings of early explorers and whalers. Except for these little technicalities, these fictional sites matched Deception Island.

We landed near the old whaling station, and walked along the water’s edge to where we could turn and climb up to a spot called Neptune’s Window. To our left was the wide desolate beach, with the crater beyond it. Cold water streams flowed from the glaciers beyond the crater, and the site was littered with whale bones and fur seals with an attitude. You might remember from an earlier post in my blog that the fur seals can run, and they are very territorial. Most just looked at us as we passed on by, but some came at us. As we were beginning our climb up the slope, the people ahead of me yelled for me to look out, pointing madly. I turned to see, and there was a fur seal heading straight for my ass. Luckily I remembered what the best plan was: run for the crowd. I didn’t have to run faster than the seal. I only had to run faster than the others.

The seal lost some momentum going up the hill, and I was experiencing an adrenalin rush. Our guide got between the seal and us, and as the seal went at him, he clapped his hands right in the seal’s face. It stopped, looked around, and went off. Another good seal evading tactic to remember!

We circled around and ended up at the old whaling station. It was built in the 1930’s, and then abandoned in the 60’s. The rusted storage tanks and boilers did indeed look like something out of Jules Verne. I got some good photos, and then headed for the crowd near the Zodiac landing site. It was time to go swimming!

Most of us stripped down to our swimsuits (if we had one), and jumped in. Now, the water might have been steaming, and we were in a volcano, but let me tell you: that water was COLD! The outside air was warmer, and I got some more shots. Unfortunately, others had gotten some shots of me too. All in all, it was a great time, even if I did have to settle for fur seals and bikini clad girls, instead of dinosaurs and half-naked cave women.

After lunch, we went ashore again, and hiked to the top of a crater. It was dormant, but had erupted in the recent past. The glaciers had ash mixed in, looking more like shoveled snow in a big city. The entire island had such a lonely beauty about it. Our guide said that during the winter it all would be snow covered and the bay would be frozen over. We left, and our last shore landing would be on St. Patrick’s Day, at Half-moon Bay.