Deception base hut December 2003
David Bridgen - 1962 - Deception Island - Antarcticans Database Project - more

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Deception Island is volcanic in origin, consisting of four craters. Whalers bay, where our base was located, was one of those craters. There were several fumaroles on the beach from which steam would escape accompanied by an odour of sulphur. The sea ice, which was normally several feet thick in the bay during the winter, never formed along the beach near our hut. The last volcanic activity before I wintered there had been in the 1930s when the Norwegian whaling station was still operating during the summer. I believe the water in the bay boiled. A couple of years after I spent the winter there the island erupted again and it was evacuated. An eruption behind the base melted the ice cap and the water brought a mass of ash and mud down into Whalers' Bay going straight through the hut en route.

Photo; © David Bridgen