Leaving a place at the end of a trip is always bittersweet, especially when leaving a place as amazing as Antarctica. Our first full day at sea, heading back to civilization, brought a bit more wind than our journey south. It wasn’t too bad though, considering what the Drake Passage can produce. There were many seabirds out enjoying the breeze, which allowed us great views of albatross and petrels. With lectures by the onboard naturalists, we all learned just a little bit more about the special place through which we had just traveled.
1/8/2025
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National Geographic Resolution
Deception Island
Early morning found National Geographic Resolution approaching Deception Island, a bonus stop before we turned north and headed for Ushuaia. Deception is a horseshoe-shaped island, the inside of which is the caldera of an active volcano. It is not every day that one gets to sail inside an active volcano! Inside we found our sister ship, National Geographic Explorer , anchored off an old Norwegian whaling station. We passed into Pendulum Cove and went ashore to walk on the beach and hike to Presidente Pedro Aquirre Cerda Station, a Chilean research station destroyed by volcanic eruption in 1967. For those who questioned whether the volcano is still active, a dip of the hand into the warm waters along the beach was all the confirmation they needed. Deception Island is a product of fire and ice and the glaciers which blanket much of the island are mantled in volcanic ash. At places where the glacier has calved the alternating layers of ash and ice, they bear witness to the landscape’s dual ancestry. Lunch found us aboard and starting to make our way back across the Drake.
