A fine afternoon for a swim!

OK, the first thing you need to know is that Deception Island, a very interesting place with much fascinating history and geologic facts about it, is for these purposes mostly interesting because it is a volcanic caldera that is inactive but not extinct so it sometimes produces hot sands and steam rising from the sea. Water hot enough to scorch the paint off the whaler ships that are part of the fascinating history.

Sometimes proves to be the most relevant word in the above paragraph.

And even though for the red group the second disembarkation of the day was sunny through a light haze of clouds and not too windy, although that picked up during our hour and a half on land, but a pleasant day non the less; for the volcano things were cool, which sounds like it should be a good thing unless you are thinking of taking a dip in the supposedly thermal waters.

Which I and about a dozen others were.

Getting off the Zodiacs we were told that there was no activity of the steam or heat variety but that the towels would be there for anyone who still wanted to take a quick (or I guess not so quick) dip. I stuck my hand in the water, it was cold. But just cold, not freezing. Really cold and absolutely no -way, freezing cold water are different. Not much, but different. Different enough that if I wasn't going to be the only one than I would do it. But first there were things to see! So I focused on that rather than thinking about what I was getting myself into.


Deception Island had been first a sealers station and then a whaling station, with hundreds of whales being processed for their blubber at one time. So there are skeletons scattered all up and down the beaches. Skeletons of the whales but also of the structures that supported their destruction. Wooden building last a long time down here, with so little humidity and no bugs to eat away at them. And iron buildings even longer.





It was an eerie place and even the few penguins we saw seemed subdued. More of the other water birds, the flying ones for some reason. I should ask one of the naturalists.

As the time was winding down I headed over to where the Zodiacs were parked to see if anyone was going to attempt the dip. It looked like no one was stripping down to their suits so I thought it was off, which I was OK about. But then I heard the commotion and knew it was on, the swimmers were shucking off their layers in the lee of one of the derelict buildings, as out of the wind (which had perked up of course!) as you could get. So that was it, had to do it!
Life-vest, coat, sweater, thermal top, boots, jeans, heavy socks, thermal bottoms, sock liners. Down to my swimsuit and on with a heavy pair of wool socks to protect my feet. Some of the people had already been in and out, but out of my line of sight. But I could hear the crowd laughing and shouting out encouraging words. And the swimmers gasps and luckily laughter not shrieks. So it was my turn. I ran through the crowd, knowing a bunch of people by now and got encouraged by name. Splashed out to about my upper thighs. Cold but OK. People didn't believe me when I said that, but it was. I, of course, ask how far we are suppose to go. What other people did, the consensus was to get the whole body wet, so I ran out a bit farther to my hips and plopped down. That went over big with the crowd! At that point, even adrenaline doesn't completely shut down common sense and I got up and ran out of there. Mom of course had been taking pictures but someone shouted "you have to go back in, she missed the shot!" I said, "Someone had to have gotten it", and kept going for the towels. At that point so pumped and sharing a sense of ridiculous victory with my fellow swimmers, I clowned around in the towel for more photos. Sigh. But I wasn't cold. Couldn't feel it, and not because I couldn't feel anything, just that I was really caught up in the moment. So much so that even in the moment it had a bit of that fractured, kaleidoscope feeling. Two of the other people who had done it were these college boys who were taking the trip because their Professor was involved with the science side of things and I had been speaking to them on-board so we were boat buddies a bit, and joked around about hitting the pool once we got back on board.

Getting dressed was actually the hardest part, feet in particular. Taking off a wet and rapidly stiffening (I was not going to think that it was freezing) sock is no easy feat. (Yes bad puns are an after effect of freezing your brain) and putting a dry one on a damp foot isn't much better. So I went back to the boat with one wet socked foot jammed in my boot and one half-on dry socked foot. Layered back up and swimmers were given priority seating on the Zodiac. Mom thinks I'm certifiable and she is one to know considering where she used to work. But it was a blast.

And back on the boat, I went straight to the pool got all the damp and kind of icy clothing off and jumped in the nice warm water, much to the amusement of the green dots and others who were enjoying the sun on the pool deck in their parkas. Hung out in the pool for about half an hour talking to the College Boys and drinking whiskey. A fine way to spend time, whatever the latitude!

I'm told I'll actually be getting a certificate.


And there are pictures but not on my camera so no download yet. I will post them as soon as I get them. But here is a before shot taken about 1o minutes before my penguin moment.