Actividad Antártica Española. B.A.E.Gabriel de Castilla

SPANISH ACTIVITIES IN ANTARCTICA. B.A.E. GABRIEL DE CASTILLA

Translated incorrectly by the Spanish as Isla Decepción (Disappointment Island), Deception Island lies 12,000 km from Spain and is the caldera of one of the Antarctic's three volcanoes. The Gabriel de Castilla military shelter was established on the island in 1989. It is run by the Operations Division of the Army's General Staff, which is coordinated in turn by the Spanish Polar Committee.
The shelter is named after Gabriel de Castilla, the Spanish navigator and explorer credited with the discovery of Antarctica at the start of the 17th century.
For years now, Correos has celebrated the Antarctic missions of Spanish individuals or organisations.
In 1991, a stamp was issued on the Antarctic Treaty and ship “Las Palmas” and in 1998 another was issued featuring the Juan Carlos I Spanish Antarctic Base.
Correos issued a stamp in 2011, as part of its Biodiversity and Oceanography series, to mark the oceanographic research ship, Hespérides; a first day of issue postmark was presented in 2014, bearing a picture of that ship, the only Spanish vessel designed for multidisciplinary scientific research in the planet's seas and oceans, in both Arctic and Antarctic areas, during summer in the northern and southern hemispheres.
A special postmark franking machine has been in service at the Gabriel de Castilla Antarctic Base since 2014. A commemorative postmark had previously been created for each year of the expedition at the base. The Chief Medical Officer of the expedition was tasked with postmarking correspondence, which was then distributed on arrival in Spain.
The stamp depicts the marvellous Antarctic landscape with the Spanish base in the background. A penguin appears in the foreground, making up part of the base's emblem.
The C postal-rate stamp presents a thermographic printing system, with iridescent ink creating a sensation of icicles all around the stamp’s perimeter.