The Shetland Islands are considered a part of Antarctica. Today the ship moved down the island to Livingston’s Island where we landed on Hanna Point in Walker Bay. There were fur seals on the shore but mostly elephant seals sleeping in groups of 8-15 seals. The penguins preferred Hanna Point. A couple of scientist are camped here while looking for fossils. They then can use these to date the land and chart history.
The ship moved further south while we were having lunch and parked inside Deception Island. This is the caldera of a volcano with an opening just big enough for ships our size to pass through into the interior. The opening is named Neptune’s Bellows because of the rock formations. Because it looks like an island but is not, it got its name Deception Island. Whalers used this island as a base to kill whales and collect their blubber for shipment back to the US, China, Russia, etc.in one year in the 1960’s they slaughtered 41,000 whales! No, that is not a typo! In 1967 and again in 1972 the volcano erupted. Whale oil prices rose and the processing plant closed down. There are still tanks, houses, and some machinery on the shore.
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