We sail south on splendidly outfitted and surprisingly comfortable ice-strengthened ships and even an icebreaker, complete with bar/lounges and libraries, and 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 Last Continent’s lavish wildlife. Our voyages from Ushuaia, Argentina, head into Drake’s Passage, where crabeater, Weddell, and leopard seals, pods of orcas, and fleets of seabirds bring the seas and skies to life. We weave in and out of celebrated ice and sea-mountain passages, and Zodiac ashore on the Antarctic Peninsula and the spectacular South Shetlands to hike, study, and photograph the teeming wildlife. Departing from Tasmania, we explore the Ross Sea, socializing with emperor penguins and investigating the mysterious Dry Valleys, Franklin Island, historic Terra Nova Bay, and the incredible Drygalski Ice Tongue. On first seeing mainland Antarctica from the Ross Sea, Robert Falcon Scott observed with bookkeeperish precision that “the golden light on this wonderful scene of mountain and ice satisfies every claim of scenic magnificence.”