Deception Island pt 1

Wow where do I start, today was the best part of the trip so far. Around noon time we entered into Deception Island, Whaler’s Bay to be exact, or at least I think it was Whaler’s Bay... Anyways I gave my cool Friend Lilly a hand getting the Zodiac ready and helping people into it once it was in the water. As soon as we landed I knew it would be an awesome time, to one side of the landing zone was a group of penguins, to the other side a group of Fur Seals, and about in the middle a penguin carcass and some only Whaling Buildings.

On the way down here I read the book Whale Warriors which is about the Sea Shepherd group trying to stop the Japanese from whaling of the coast of Antarctica. Was a good book and I wish them the best of luck in stopping the whaling. But with the book fresh in my mind still Seeing and being able to walk around an area where whales have be processed was kinda erie. One of the First things you see when you land is some storage tanks with some out laying buildings closely near by. After the whalers abandoned the buildings around 1930ish I think, the British used it as a base until the late 60’s when the volcano on the island erupted. So all the buildings are in fairly rough shape if they are even standing still. After checking out a few of the buildings and the Fur Seals around them, I decided to make my way down the beach to check out an overlook into a cove on the outside of the island. On the way there I came across a few seals hiding in some old rusted out structures.

In the sand I stumbled across the skeleton of a a whale partially sticking out of the sand. In my mind I was reminded that this was something that happened in the past, until I realized that The Japanese and a few other groups still kill whales. I hope that at some point soon that just like the whaling station on Deception, that all whaling would be a thing of the past.