Island of Disappointment
the island of Disappointment is a island of the Archipel of the Shetland Islands of the South, in the Mer of Scotland, 120 km in the north of the Péninsule the Antarctic (62°57 ′ S 60°36 ′ W). The only inhabited places are bases of scientific research dependant on the armed forces Argentine S and Spanish.
Description
The island is known for its bay, one of surest of the the Antarctic, and for its Volcan, whose last eruptions, in 1967 and 1969, inflicted many damage at the scientific bases.The island has a round form, with a maximum diameter of 12 km. Its highest point is the Pond mount (542 m). A large bay, Foster Port, are in the center of the island; being 9 km long on 6 km broad, it covers the majority of the center of the island. This bay has a very narrow entry: only 230 m broad, this narrow part are called Neptune' S Bellows (“bellows of Neptune”). The passage of this strait is done even more difficult with the presence of the Ravn Rock , 2,5m under water surface, in the middle of the passage. At the entry of Neptune' S Bellows the Anse is called Whalers' Bay , bordered of a Plage of black sand.
History
However, it is a popular refuge of the sailors since the beginning of the 19th century; they awaited there the end of the storms and the passage of the Iceberg S. It was initially used by hunters of Phoque, then in 1906 a company of Chasse for the Norwegian whale - Chile enne started to use it as a base for one of its factory ships, the Gobernador Bories . Other companies made in the same way; in the 1914,13 ships were based there.One did not treat with it the Spermaceti, which was done on the ships, but one took the carcasses there to extract the Huile there from whale in large Chaudière S, to arrange the result in cisterns of Fer.
The price of the oil of whale dropped during the Grande Depression, returning the station on the nonprofitable island; it was thus abandoned in 1931. Technological advances returned the stations of treatment of the obsolete carcasses on dry land, therefore it was not re-occupied any more.
Forty-five men were buried in the Cimetière of the island, but this one was covered by the Lave at the time of the eruption of 1969. The only evidence of the station whale-boat is the rusted boilers and some cisterns.
Other ruins with Whalers' Bay are an old man air Hangar with a Fuselage of sharp orange plane in front of (withdrawn in 2004 ), and the British scientific base, Biscoe House , whose center was destroyed by the eruption of 1969.
The Argentine disputed the British control of the island during the years 1950 and 1960, withdrawing there the flags of the the United Kingdom and by occupying it temporarily.
February 3rd, 1944, the British established a permanent base there, within the Opération Tabarin and occupied it until the eruption of December 5th, 1967. They returned on December 4th, 1968 there, to still give up it on February 23rd, 1969, dates from the second great eruption which made give up it definitively. The same eruption destroyed the Chilean stations Pedro Aguirre Cerda and Gutierrez Vargas .
The Argentinian president Arturo Frondizi visited the island in 1961.
The too dangerous volcano being judged to install there new stations, it remains nothing any more but two about it, used only in summer: Gabriel de Castilla (Spain) , and Decepción (Argentinian) .
Ecology
The island of Disappointment shelters several colonies of penguins to chin-strap. Baily Head , on the west coast, has the largest colony of these penguins.It is possible to take a hot bath while digging in the sand of the handle, thus doing it a popular stop of the antarctic towers.
The Norwegian ship m/s Nordkapp ran aground on the coast of the island on January 30th, 2007, its Combustible (approximately 500-750 liters of diesel light) entering bay. January 4th of the same year, the Spanish base Gabriel de Castilla informed that the tests made on the water and the sand of the island did not show any sign of pollution.
The island has very varied microclimates. The temperature of water can rise until 70º C, and the air close to the volcanic areas, 40ºC.
See too