Deception Island is a dormant volcano with its peak imploded, forming a flooded bay via a narrow entrance called Neptunes Bellows.
First impressions looked like a relatively easy navigation into Whalers Bay, but somewhere in the depths at the centre of the passage,
lies a sunken ship. With great care & skill, the Grigory Mikheev passed through, extremely close to the volcanic cliffs on the right hand side.

Whaler's Bay was founded as a whaling station by the Norwegians in the early 1900's.
In 1928, Hubert Wilkins from Australia took off in the first fixed­wing aircraft from here to conduct a survey of  Antarctic Peninsula.
Martin had told us the remains of a plane were still up in the hanger at the right of Pendulum Cove. After a short trek up over the volcanic ash,
we found a great big empty space!! (Later to discover at Port Lockroy, that a British Antarctic Survey team had salavaged the plane from the
site, as a multi-millionaire had decided he wanted it for his private collection. It was transferred to Rothera & will eventually go back to De Haviland
to be restored, and placed in a museum, until it could be safely returned.)

Whalers Bay was later used as a base for scientific research, but had to be abandoned after several volcanic eruptions in 1969 and 1971.
A number of buildings & fuel containers had just about survived the eruptions, and the remains of the cemetery stood out with a few scattered crosses.

Also on the beach could be seen remains of the early whaling activities. A few large whale bones lay scattered amongst the Coopers barrels
used to store the whale oil, and two wooden boats lay beached on the sands.
Further up the beach a small murky pool of water lay host to a large flock of Skuas, splashing, diving & fighting.
Along the beach lay Neptunes Window. A short climb gave a vantage point out across the ocean, and back into the whole crater of Deception Island.

After dinner the previous evening, Monika had asked if anyone wanted to go for a swim in the Antarctic & if so today would be the day to do it!
Those brave/foolhardy enough, (myself included), were told the water was volcanically heated & pleasantly warm, although the sand on the beach
would be extremely hot & could burn our feet. Unfortunately, by the time everyone had returned to the beach from various expeditions, the tide
had gone out, and a couple of feet of warm water was followed by freeeeezing cold water!!  (Even the chinstrap penguins weren't going in!!!)

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