Deception Island
Between the Shetland islands of the South and the Antarctic Peninsula are the icy waters of the Bransfield Strait, and in it a unique and deceiving island that was baptized as disappointment almost since the moment it was discovered.
He was Nathaniel Palmercaptain of an American whaling, which in 1821 named Deception (“Deceit”), discovering that what in a distance seemed an island actually had an inner pond.
Palmer may have been the first person to see the island, although Edward Bransfield and Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen also navigated the area at that time, the three being considered co-discoverers of Antarctica.
In fact, the lagoon It is the flooded boiler of a volcano that is still active: its most recent eruption occurred in 2015, says the.
The boiler, which collapsed thousands of years ago and was submerged, forms a natural port called Port Fosterwhose entry is about 500 meters wide and is spectacularly flanked by ice -covered cliffs.
The island that surrounds this inner pond has horseshoe form, with a maximum diameter of 15 kilometers and a maximum increase of 539 meters on the pond.
Most of the land is covered by glaciers about 10 meters thick, which are on the pyroclastic remains of ancient volcanic eruptions.
In the twentieth century, The island has become an important whaling centerwith Norwegian and Chilean companies to establish processing factories where tons of whale fat were melted. Numerous traces of this now abandoned industry are still visible: rusty tanks, bones of cetaceans and even an abandoned hangar.
After the Bullet’s departure, they were established on the island scientific bases From several countries, including Argentina, Chile, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The Chilean and British bases were destroyed by a violent eruption volcanic in 1967 and abandoned. Today, only the Argentine Base and the Spanish Castilla Gabriel base operate during the summer.
Despite its danger, The island is a tourist destination which attracts more than 15,000 visitors per year. Those who can get there can walk between penguin colonies, explore the remains of the old whale stations and abandoned research stations, and bathe in natural thermal sources simply digging holes in the sand heated by the volcano.
It is probably The only place in the world where you can swim – And, of course, navigate – inside the boiler of a volcano that is still activewith all the risk and emotion it implies for those who like to challenge fate.
But the island is also a natural sanctuarywith eleven protected terrestrial zones and two sea areas under the antarctic treaty system, due to its unique biodiversity and ecological and botanical value. Numerous species of plants live there that cannot be found anywhere on the planet.
One Singular event took place on November 27, 2006when the ship of Russian cruise MV Lyubov Orlova ran ranked on the island And it had to be towed by the Las Palmas Las Palmas from the Spanish Navy.
Years later, this same ship was being towed to the Dominican Republic to be dismantled when the cable broke, and the ship comes into drifting, losing forever. It is not known whether it sank or still sail as a ghost ship.
