Antarctic Rock & Roll!!!

The Day 2 plan called for a landing at Half-Moon Island followed by a short sail and a second landing at Deception Island. The operative words in that statement being "called for" because no plan in the Antarctic is ever cast in stone.

Our group was to be second out this morning, so we got to "sleep in", but since all announcements are piped into the cabin by the PA system, you never really get to miss anything. It had been a very "bumpy" night, so we were not surprised when our Expedition Leader's 7:30 announcement was "we're here, it doesn't look promising, but we are sending in the scout boat", followed about 15 minutes later by "it is far too rough to land", so we are off to Deception Island.

The Zodiac coming back from its scouting mission

Deception Island is actually the caldera of an active volcano (last eruption 1972) with a very narrow entrance channel guarded by a submerged rock. When we were here in 2007 a Norwegian vessel had an "encounter" with that rock that holed its hull, so entering the caldera is tricky under the best of conditions. And we didn't get the best of conditions. Actually by the time we got there, the weather had actually gotten worse and we were dealing with 40 knot winds (that's about 60MPH) and ten to twelve foot seas. The Captain announced that he would drop anchor for a couple of hours and we would wait and see if the weather changed. Sure enough, two hours later, it had changed. For the worse!! Higher waves and even higher winds!! Landings cancelled!

Looking into the Deception Island caldera

Before hauling the anchor, the Captain advised that we would be in for some rough seas for the next five to six hours and to make sure we secured our cabins. He wasn't kidding! From about 2:00PM until just a bit after 8:00PM we pitched, rocked and rolled in seas that ran anywhere from 10 to 35 feet and winds that gusted up to 65 knots, or about 75 MPH!! That is just below Hurricane strength for those keeping track. Actually, in the afternoon we got an impromptu lecture about the Beaufort Scale of Wind Force and our lecturer, Susanne, told us we could all go home and brag about being on a ship in a Force 8 storm!

For all that, the ship handled the waves remarkably well, and while there was movement, it was not excessive and we had no problem moving about the ship. Of course we were in the minority as the vast majority stayed in their cabins all afternoon!!

That evening at dinner, we sat down in the restaurant, which is on Deck 2 and probably no more than 10 feet above the water line, and immediately got the window beside us washed by a wave! We took some video of the seas, and can only say that when you're close enough to the waves that you're looking up from the bottom of the trough while traveling at 16 knots, you get a real appreciation of the power of Mother Nature.

As the Captain predicted, just after 8:00 we reached the lee of the islands and the seas were suddenly – like from one second to the next – down to a ripple, and the rest of the evening was spent gawking at the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula on one side and Brabant Island on the other.