Saturday, February 17th, we arrive at the Chilean station Videla located in the magnificent Paradise Bay surrounded by mountains reaching over 1000 meters in altitude; the slopes are covered with glaciers that calve numerous icebergs. The navigation from the anchorage of Pleneau, half motor half sail, under the sun is pleasant; we cross the Gerlache Strait with a festival of whales and even orcas!! We had been dreaming of encountering this great predator for a long time!
On Sunday, after a short visit to the station, we take advantage of the good weather to climb Duthiers Point where a small colony of chinstrap penguins nests; the view from the summit over the entire bay is splendid!
We weigh anchor the next morning at dawn to motor to Two Hummock Island, 40 miles to the North. This anchorage at the foot of the glacier offers few landing possibilities, but Nina and Diane still manage to uncover a pirate treasure buried in the snow on the small strip of land next to Libertaire... (we had hidden it a few hours earlier!)
We spend 3 days there and are joined by the French sailboat Petrouchka, sailing with their 10-year-old son; despite the age difference, the girls are delighted to have a new friend.
We continue our journey North and reach Trinity Island on February 22nd: 40 miles in a SE wind force 3-4 after a few miles upwind in a North wind force 6 and a West swell: a good "leg stretch" before the Drake return. The weather forces us to stay two nights in this rolling anchorage with numerous growlers from the surrounding glaciers... We decide to take advantage of the wind shift to the West for a few hours during the night of February 24th to 25th to cover the 55 miles separating us from the volcanic island Deception in the South Shetlands. We enter the caldera through Neptune's Bellows at dawn and drop anchor in Telefon Bay.
We thus leave the Antarctic Peninsula, the landscape black with volcanic ash is striking and contrasts with the brightness of the snow we had become accustomed to for almost 3 months. Deception Island is unique; ten thousand years ago, a volcano erupted from the ocean floor, a section collapsed, and opened a breach where water flooded the caldera. It is one of the few in the world where you can enter by boat and thus penetrate the heart of a crater.
Despite the windy and rainy weather, the clearings allow us invigorating walks in this lunar landscape. We should weigh anchor tomorrow morning for the anchorage of Hannah Point on Livingston Island, passing by Baily Head to observe one of the largest colonies of chinstrap penguins.
We will then stand by for a favorable weather window for our return to Chilean Patagonia.