We have reached Antarctica! Today onboard National Geographic Explorer, we finished our crossing of the Drake Passage and made it to Dallmann Bay. Our Captain Peik Aalto welcomed us with a traditional Captain’s Cocktail Party. By the time we were seated for dinner, icebergs were gently gliding by the windows. After dinner, the ship cruised into the smaller Fournier Bay. We took to the decks amongst softly falling snow to get close views of icebergs and to peer at mountains through the fog. We have made it, and it is beautiful.
1/8/2025
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National Geographic Resolution
Deception Island
Early morning found National Geographic Resolution approaching Deception Island, a bonus stop before we turned north and headed for Ushuaia. Deception is a horseshoe-shaped island, the inside of which is the caldera of an active volcano. It is not every day that one gets to sail inside an active volcano! Inside we found our sister ship, National Geographic Explorer , anchored off an old Norwegian whaling station. We passed into Pendulum Cove and went ashore to walk on the beach and hike to Presidente Pedro Aquirre Cerda Station, a Chilean research station destroyed by volcanic eruption in 1967. For those who questioned whether the volcano is still active, a dip of the hand into the warm waters along the beach was all the confirmation they needed. Deception Island is a product of fire and ice and the glaciers which blanket much of the island are mantled in volcanic ash. At places where the glacier has calved the alternating layers of ash and ice, they bear witness to the landscape’s dual ancestry. Lunch found us aboard and starting to make our way back across the Drake.
