Antarctica, Deception Island
Day 4, landing 1; Bailey Head
At 5.45 am the ship's PA system crackled into life and we were woken by Rolf's characteristic chirpy (and soon to be all too familiar) "Good morning, good morning". The before-breakfast landing was on Bailey Head, Deception Island, with plans to hike across the island to Whaler's Bay, the after-breakfast landing site.
I decided to skip this landing but Niall set off with the others and found an enormous (hundreds of thousands of birds?) chinstrap penguin colony. Orderly penguin lanes crossed the beach. Looking towards the sea, white fronts bustled back from their morning swim while black backs queued and jostled down to start theirs. Arms eagerly outstretched, a dozen birds at a time waited for perfect sea conditions to synchronously launch themselves into the waves. Each team of swimmers seemed to comprise an optimum number (twelve to fourteen by Cherry's count) and any excess hopefuls were forced to turn back in a panic to wait for the next group to form. Only a floating leopard seal on the lookout for his breakfast disrupted the system. Behind a rise at the back of the beach the serious business of egg- and chick-sitting was going on - and on; for miles, judging by the photos. I was sorry not to see first-hand such a huge nesting site.
At this point a handful of people decided not to accompany Rolf on his gentle early-morning stroll and turned back for the zodiacs. Back on board, breakfast was announced; then postponed, in order to wait for the hikers to join us. Half an hour after they were expected back, there was still no sign of anyone appearing over the hill and Ellen took pity on us and served breakfast just for our ailing group with complaints of bad knees and pregnancy, plus our respective selfless caretakers. I had time for three helpings (the sea sickness/morning sickness had definitely receded - sorry to some of the latecomers if you found no breakfast left!) before we piled back into a zodiac and met the first returning hikers as we landed on Whaler's Bay.
