Wednesday, 3 Jan 2024 – We were scheduled to start our cruise past Deception Island at 7:00 AM, so Jesse set our alarm. Deception Island is in the South Shetland Islands close to the Antarctic Peninsula with a large and usually "safe" natural harbor, which is occasionally affected by the underlying active volcano. The island was named "Deception Island" because of its outward deceptive appearance as a normal island, when the narrow entrance of Neptune's Bellows revealed it rather to be a ring around a flooded caldera (volcano crater). At first, it was so foggy that Jesse was unable to see anything, so he waited until about 7:45 AM to wake Sally, after some of the fog had cleared.
We went to our usual
breakfast in the Terrace Café. We were
much earlier than usual and there weren’t any tables for two available, but we
were invited to six at a table for 6.
The couple at the table were from the UK. They recently purchased a house and had it
remodeled for retirement – wider doors, etc.
They were mostly done with breakfast when we arrived, so they soon said
their goodbyes. The woman sitting alone
was Frances, from Baltimore, MD. We talked
for quite a while. She was traveling
with her husband, but he was listening to a lecture. She was an only child, and has two artificial
hips. They have two children and no
grandchildren. Her 36-year-old daughter
has long Covid and lives with them. We
talked a lot about family history. She
wishes she had discussed the subject more with her parents.
We
returned to our cabin by 10:00 AM, in time for the scheduled visit to Half Moon
Island, a minor Antarctic Island, lying in McFarlane Strait of in the South Shetland
Islands of the Antarctic
Peninsula region. It was still foggy and rainy, so
we weren’t able to see very much. Before
beginning his talk, the narrator announced that two members of the expedition
team became officially engaged as of yesterday!
Soon, Sally lay down
for a nap and Jesse went to the Beauty Salon/Spa and made himself a reservation
for a haircut and Sally, a reservation for a manicure and pedicure. Ordinarily, we would consider that splurging,
but we still had a lot of cruise credits to spend. Then, Jesse did a load of laundry. He set alarms to return to the laundromat at
the end of the wash and dry cycles; however, he fell asleep after he shut off
the alarm for the dry cycle. When he got
back to the laundry room someone had removed the clothes from the dryer and
placed them in one of the laundry baskets, which is customary. Jesse wasn’t happy about that, but he could
only blame himself! Luckily, the clothes
hadn’t wrinkled yet.
At about 3:00 PM, the
ship entered Admiralty Bay, an irregular bay, 5 miles wide at its entrance
between Demay Point and Martins Head, indenting the southern coast of King
George Island for 10 miles, in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. The
western sore of Admiralty Bay rises to a maximum elevation of about 1,148 feet
and is shaped by glacial and coastal marine processes.
The weather had cleared
a little, so we were able to see quite a bit of the shoreline. Jesse snapped photos of some of the glaciers,
penguins, and science stations. The
highlight of the afternoon was a huge rainbow that stretched over one of the
islands!
Before signing off for
the day, the narrator announced that he hoped to visit Iceberg A23a around 7:30
AM tomorrow morning, currently the largest floating body on earth. Sadly, Jesse made a haircut appointment for
8:00 AM tomorrow morning!
Before dinner, we went
to the Horizons again and danced to the 4 Corners Band. Ed & Alicia joined us on the dance floor,
along with another couple, occasionally.
At dinner, we sat in Maribeth’s section in the Terrace Café, and were
joined by Betsy Lee.
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