Deception Island was the final stop on our cruise around the Antarctic – high winds and bad weather prevented the last planned landing elsewhere, so we landed in two places on Deception instead. But it was a suitable end to the adventure.
Deception Island is the visible tip of a volcano. From the sea floor the volcano reaches up in the region of 4,000 metres, but only the top few hundred are above the waves. Some number of millions of years ago, in the deep geological past, seawater flowed into the cone of the volcano, and we can only guess at the magnitude and magic of what that event may have looked like. Today what we see is a ring of mountains with narrow beaches at their feet almost completely encircling a patch of sea. It’s a magnified version of the Devil’s Crown in the Galapagos, but whereas that could be swum across in only a few moments, Deception Island’s circle of water is roughly two miles in diameter. It’s another visual underlining of the size of volcanoes. The entrance to Deception is between a cliff on one side and a high spit of land on the other, and collectively they are called Neptune’s Bellows.
On the way to land on the Zodiac I realised it was the coldest day yet that we had been out. Everyone was hunched down in their warm clothes. The wind was strong and ripping. High up in the ring of mountains, weathering over the aeons has produced a natural viewing area, where the ring of stone has been lowered as if roughly cut away. It’s called Neptune’s Window. On the way up there it started to sleet, and the wind caught and it dragged it almost horizontal. It got colder still. This was not the best day for a swim. Every time I thought of it I got a little wave of nerves, and excuses rose like bubbles.
At the Window we had a great view over the island from one side and out to sea on the other. Deception was once a home for whalers due to its natural protection from the worst of the surrounding sea. On the beach are eight or ten abandoned buildings from that time, falling down from age and the elements. We were told they were off-limits, but you’d need to have great faith in your own luck to go in even without the warning – they look as though not much is keeping them together, and some are already collapsed. The buildings are rough and functional and surrounding them are rusted, riveted tanks and pipes and gears and bits of machinery. It’s a place that could spark a thousand stories.
Up at the Window, the Australians kept the laughs coming. (Sorry Simon.) Julio had made several jokes at his talk about the hot springs at Deception Island and finding a palm tree to hide behind to change into your swimming trunks. There are in fact springs coming from the volcano, deep under the water, that mean the water in the circle of Deception is roughly one degree warmer than the water of the open sea, so it’s closer to -1C rather than -2C. As we were standing mostly in silence in the teeth of the wind, looking out over the black rocks and ruined buildings, an Australian woman said to one of the staff, ‘Where are the hot springs?’
Everyone smiled, assuming it was a joke.
‘Julio said there would be hot springs,’ the woman repeated, insistently.
Smiles faded slightly.
‘Well the water is warmer in here, but not by much,’ said the guide, who did not have perfect English.
‘But where are the springs?’ said the woman again.
I chimed in and explained the water of Deception are slightly warmer than the water elsewhere in the Antarctic.
‘I thought there were hot springs,’ she said, looking somewhat disgusted, and turned away without further comment. I imagine she wandered off to look for a palm tree.
I came back down from the Window and walked to the buildings at the other end, and on the way I passed the GAP people who told me swimming would kick off in 45 minutes. I nodded and kept walking. The sleet had eased and then returned. By not watching where I was going I damn near walked into a fur seal. This is not a good idea, as they can chase you and they can bite. We have been warned many times to keep an eye out for them, because they carry diseases of the sort that rapidly descend into the need for a helicopter. Once I started looking I saw they were everywhere, and I had to pick a careful path through them, keeping the recommended distance of 15m.
Then from somewhere behind me I heard a scream and then a cheer, and I turned to see that the swimming had begun.
The non-swimmers were gathered in the lee of a large metal construction shaped like an angular half-moon. The opening swimmers were stripping down. I didn’t think about it much and took off my jacket, then my hat, then my scarf. I already had my togs on under my jeans. While wearing just a t-shirt the wind was cold, but it didn’t seem to feel much worse on bare skin. There were a few other people getting ready at the same time. I turned to them and said ‘Let’s go!’ to find they had already gone and were on the way back out again. I picked my way through the crowd of people huddled in their coats and scarfs and hats and gloves and stood and looked at the water. I had the presence of mind to hand my camera to one of the people there and ask them to take a few moments. And then I put my head down and ran. I think I made it three steps into the water before I dived.
It was astonishing. They had told me that sometimes the shock of cold makes people involuntarily take a breath underwater, and that was why they had some of the sailors standing by to pull people out if necessary. That had freaked me right out. But I felt nothing like that. It was nothing like anything I have ever felt before, an awareness of water and cold and being part of it for a moment, an unsustainable thing by its nature. Almost as soon as it had happened it was over. I stood in the water, which was up to my thighs or so, and a high-pitched sound of cold escaped me. There was laughter and cheers, as there was for everyone.
When I got to the shore I found my feet and legs were numb. Feeling came back in my legs in a minute or so, but it took more than five minutes to get feeling back in my feet and toes. And in fact changing back into my clothes was the worst part – my fingers were not working quite as usual so zips and buttons were hard, and the rocks and grit of the beach were painful to stand on as feeling returned. Everyone said that.
That special moment was the spiritual end of the Antarctic trip. Later in the day we landed on Deception for a second time, on the opposite side of the circle. We climbed to the top of the hill of the crater and there was a view over a shallow lake and a half-starved river where water runs out to sea. Other than that it was a view only a geologist could love. There was so much mist and fog it was hard to see anything further than 100 yards away, and it was bitterly cold. All the tourists were corralled into the path up, the top, or the path down. It was package-tour 15-minutes-in-the-Collosseum stuff. Getting back into the Zodiac I had conflicting feelings of relief to be over this particular landing, and sadness at leaving the lands of the Antarctic.
Already my thoughts turn to when and how I might come back.
