Island of fire and ice at the edge of the world

The volcanic activity on Deception Island means you can have a boiling hot thermal mud bath. Picture / Jim Eagles

The village which sits just inside the entrance of Port Foster has a decidedly battered look. An old bunkhouse sags dramatically at the ends and looks as though it might easily break in half. A more substantial house has a corner blown away and the remains of the upstairs floor now droop forlornly to the ground. Several smaller huts have been reduced to skeletons. Giant steel tanks lean at a rakish angle.

The sad condition of this abandoned settlement on Deception Island is hardly surprising. It was built around the crater of an active volcano which from time to time sprays out showers of ash, mud and lava.

It also sits just off the end of the Antarctic Peninsula, in one of the least hospitable corners of the earth, where even in summer the rocky peaks are covered in snow and a chill wind whips across the sea.

Why would anyone even try to build a community in such a desolate spot? Down on the the beach are are few clues: the bleached bones of huge creatures lie on the black sand alongside the smaller ribs of abandoned boats and broken barrels.

Between 1906 and 1931 this was the site of one of the world's busiest whaling stations. At its peak in 1913 there were 27 catcher boats, 12 floating factories and a huge on-shore factory processing more than 5000 whales a year.

It must have been a hellish place to work. Temperatures get as low as -20C, winds of hurricane strength regularly batter the island, there is the constant threat of volcanic activity, and in the whaling days there would also have been the stench of the great beasts being boiled down to extract their oil.

But, ironically, it was not the natural hazards of the island which caused the station to close but simple economics - a fall in the price of whale oil and the development of more efficient seagoing factory ships.

Visit Deception Island today - as part of a trip to the Antarctic Peninsula - and it's hard to imagine it as a place of bustling industrial activity.

Despite the cluster of structures it remains a barren place where life of any sort struggles to find a toehold.

Continuing geothermal activity - in 1923 the whalers reported the sea got so hot the paint peeled off their ships - means even penguins avoid the harbour.

On the day we dropped in the only sign of life around the settlement was a handful of sleeping fur seals, one of them having a nap in the rusted remains of the whaling station's old floating dock, and a few swooping pinatado petrels from a colony on the cliffs at the end of the beach.

Still, the extent of the remains, including several buildings, three huge rusting tanks once used to store oil for the ships, four more tanks for whale oil, the old floating dock and various mysterious pieces of equipment, does give an idea of how extensive the operation was.

And it is easy to understand why the whalers would have used this place as a refuge in a dangerous and stormy part of the world.

The island is in fact a volcanic crater, one section of which has collapsed, creating a giant ring of cliffs around a huge lake of sea water which forms what Lonely Planet describes as "one of the safest natural harbours in the world."

The entrance to this haven is a mere 230m wide, a rock is inconveniently placed in the middle and there's a tendency for high winds because of the funnelling effect of the crater walls, causing oldtime seamen to give it names like Hells' Gate, Dragon's Mouth and - the version generally used today - Neptune's Bellows.

As a permanent indication of how tricky it can be to navigate the Bellows, on one side of the entrance lies the wreck of the British sealer Southern Hunter, which ran aground on New Year's Eve 1957.

Behind the old settlement there's another reminder that this is a dangerous place. Two lonely crosses are all that is left to mark a cemetery holding the graves of 45 men which itself was buried by a volcanic eruption in 1969.

Still, once inside the harbour ships were marvellously protected from the storms of the Southern Ocean, so over the years Britain, Spain, Argentina and Chile have all had stations there.

The British base was at the old whaling station and you can still see some of the buildings, particularly the large corrugated iron aircraft hangar which housed a plane used for survey flights, though the runway it used is buried under volcanic debris.

Volcanic activity in the 60s and 70s forced the stations to be evacuated several times and Britain and Chile eventually gave up. Spain and Argentina do still have bases on the island but they operate only spasmodically.

There was no great volcanic activity during our visit but at various places round the island steam could be seen rising from hot geothermal springs - one of them alongside the whaling station - and volcanic vents. All that geothermal activity may be worrying but it also provides a rare opportunity to go bathing in the Antarctic without the risk of hypothermia.

A couple of the Russians from our ship's crew dug holes in the sand near the edge of the sea which quickly filled up with hot water, allowing those who wished to have a hot soak, and giving a foolhardy few the chance to give themselves the sauna treatment by also plunging into the icy sea.

Unfortunately there turned out to be problems on both fronts. Aussie Ian Simkins, who plunged into the sea, found it so cold he could only survive a few seconds. "I jumped in and swam out a couple of strokes. But when I started to swim back to shore my body went into spasms and I was only just able to make it."

On the other hand his wife Dawn, who stuck to the thermal pools, found their temperature too high for comfort. "I burned my feet walking in then I burned my bottom when I sat down."

That, in many ways, sums up what it must have been like living on Deception Island: caught between volcanic fire and Antarctic ice.

It's a fascinating place to visit but I can't imagine living there.