Pendulum Cove (Île de la Déception)

Pendulum Cove on Deception Island, one of the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica, offers geothermal and sulphurous beach bathing where the volcanic thermal energy of this subantarctic caldera island heats the black volcanic beach sands and intertidal zone to temperatures that allow brief but memorable bathing in the Southern Ocean's most dramatically volcanic setting. Deception Island's remarkable horseshoe shape, formed by the partial collapse of a volcanic caldera, creates a sheltered harbour port Foster that was historically the site of whaling operations, scientific expeditions including early Chilean and British Antarctic Territory activities, and volcanic eruptions in 1967 and 1969 that destroyed the scientific stations on the island and forced their evacuation. The combination of active volcanic geology, Antarctic wildlife including massive fur seal colonies and penguin rookeries, the ruins of historic whaling and scientific infrastructure, and the unique possibility of geothermal bathing in one of the world's most remote and atmospherically powerful natural environments makes Pendulum Cove one of the great geothermal spectacles accessible to Antarctic expedition tourism.