Our second landing for the day is in the furthest, southerly point of the South Shetlands: Telefon Bay in Deception Island. This is an active volcano, whose one side has broken away during one of the eruptions and now the caldera is filled with sea water. The entrance to the caldera is through a narrow gorge. That has a steep side with a couple of frozen waterfalls and on the left is multicoloured, multi layered volcano. Just as you enter the caldera there is an old whaling station. The island is named as such as the whalers expected an abundance of wildlife, but found none. As we carry on sailing, to the furthest point away from the entrance we are hit by the vast difference of this landscape to the others we have seen. Besides the very low clouds, which does not allow us to see the top of the caldera, the landscape is a mixture of midnight black basalt, contrasted by white glaciers and grey waves where these mix.
At our landing we hike up to an area that saw volcanic activity a few decades ago. The landscape is really striking in its colour contrasts- the grey layers one can see are actually in the glacier, these are not rocks.
Nothing grows here except a bit of algae, and we found one lonely Weddel seal on the beach.
