Antarctica always has a sting in its tail. After the long sail down from South Georgia we were all desperate to get off the ship and go for a walk. It’s great to arrive in Antarctica – after all the magnificent scenery in South Georgia and the wildlife of the Falklands, suddenly we are in a black and white world with glaciers and black crags and black and white penguins, cape petrels and terns.
This morning the weather was kind to us and we landed at Half Moon Island, an island that looks very much like a croissant on a map. We land on a beach at one of the crunchy ends and the long walk climbed the tall fluffy pastry middle. Down the landing end there’s a healthy colony of nesting chinstrap penguins, perhaps the stroppiest of the species. It was entertaining to walk up the hill and watch them in their squabbling domestic duties.
But this afternoon was Deception Island, an active volcano with a collapsed external wall so you can sail the ship right into the caldera. Once inside, you turn hard to starboard and land at the ruined settlement of Whalers Bay. Not this time – the whole bay was full of ice, no mean feat for an area of geothermally heated water. But we had no choice but to continue deep into Port Foster to Telefon Bay where we landed on a beach we’d never landed on and did a walk up a mountain we’d never climbed.  It was more interesting than Whalers Bay, provided more exercise and was something new. It turns out that the old sailors were right – the fastest [and most interesting] way through ice is to go around it – and to go somewhere else.

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