We board our expeditionary vessel in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Our ice-hardened ships are surprisingly comfortable; they have bar/lounges and libraries and feature private baths for most cabins (they also have a clinic and physician on board, and satellite telephone and fax capacities for incoming calls and faxes). On-board naturalists lecture, hobnob, and help identify the lavish wildlife.
Leaving Ushuaia, we head south into the Drake Passage toward notorious Cape Horn, encountering pack ice and epic bergs—a floating, and thus more fantastic, version of the Alps. Crabeater, Weddell, and leopard seals, pods of orcas, and fleets of seabirds bring the seas and skies to life.
Taking advantage of the long days at the height of the austral summer, we weave in and out of such famous ice and sea-mountain passages and islands as Paradise Bay, Anvers Island, King George Island (dripping with glaciers that descend from its ice cap), Port Lockroy (under 5000-foot “bleak, empty, precipitous, inaccessible” Mount William), Le Maire Channel (one sailor reports being “up against the sea cliff and having 100 meters of water beneath our bow”), and Deception Island (described in Sailing Directions for Antarctica as “one of the most remarkable crater islands in the world,” complete with steaming fumaroles and sulfur springs). We’ll spend as much time as possible on the Peninsula and the spectacular South Shetlands, Zodiacing ashore to hike, study, and photograph the teeming wildlife. Our longer voyages also include visits to the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, a breath-stopping, 9500-foot rock massif thrust up from the depths, populated by vast congeries of penguins and seals. (“Standing in the midst of a vast king penguin colony composed of a quarter of a million nesting pairs,” says our Antarctic man Urs Hofmann, “is a fantastic and very humbling experience.”) This comprehensive voyage, combining the wildlife and scenic extravaganzas of the Peninsula and South Georgia, is a polar fan’s ultimate plum.
For additional details on this Antarctic cruise, please call 1-800-777-8183.
An Explorer's Antarctica (2011/2012)
Trip Details
- Departures from November through March
11, 12, 15, or 20 daysActivity Type:
Exploratory,
Small Boat Cruising,
Expeditionary Voyaging
Trip Price:
From $4,890
- More Antarctica Trips
- More Exploratory Trips
