Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetlands Aboard the Plancius

Your voyage begins where the world drops off: Ushuaia, Argentina, reputed to be the southernmost city on the planet, located on the far southern tip of South America.  Starting in the afternoon, you embark from this small resort town on Tierra del Fuego – nicknamed “The End of the World” – and sail the scenic, mountain-fringed Beagle Channel for the rest of the evening.  Overnight aboard the ship.  (D)

Note: We advise all passengers to plan to arrive in Ushuaia one night before the cruise departure.

Over the next two days on the Drake Passage, you catch a taste of life from the perspective of the polar explorers who first braved these regions: cool salt breezes, rolling seas, maybe even a fin whale blasting up sea spray.  After passing the Antarctic Convergence – Antarctica’s natural boundary, formed when northflowing cold waters collide with warmer subantarctic seas – you are in the circum-Antarctic upwelling zone.  Not only does the marine life change, the avian life changes too: A variety of albatrosses and petrels show up, along with Cape pigeons and southern fulmars.  Then, near the South Shetlands Islands, the first icebergs flash into sight.  Overnight aboard the ship.  (B,L,D)

Gray stone peaks sketched with snow, towers of broken blue-white ice, and dramatically different wildlife below and above.  You first pass the snow-capped Melchior Islands and Schollaert Channel, sailing between Brabant and Anvers Islands.

Sites you may visit include:

Cuverville Island – Stabbing up between Rongé Island and the Antarctic Peninsula, Cuverville houses a massive colony of gentoo penguins as well as pairs of breeding brown skuas.

Danco Island – Activities here may focus on the gentoo penguins nesting on the island, in addition to the Weddell and crabeater seals that can be found nearby.

Neko Harbour – An epic landscape of mammoth glaciers and endless wind-carved snow.  Opportunities for Zodiac cruising and kayaking provide you the closest possible view of the ice-crusted alpine peaks.

Paradise Bay – You may be able to take a Zodiac cruise in these sprawling, ice-flecked waters, where you have a good chance of seeing humpback and minke whales.

Port Lockroy – After sailing through the Neumayer Channel, you get a chance to visit the former British research station – now a museum and post office – of Port Lockroy on Goudier Island.

You may also be able to partake in activities around Jougla Point, meeting gentoo penguins and blue-eyed shags.  There are great opportunities also for kayaking and camping here, and when conditions are right, you can even snowshoe around the shore.  Overnight aboard the ship.  (B,L,D)

The volcanic islands of the South Shetlands are windswept and often cloaked in mist, but they do offer subtle pleasures: There’s a wide variety of flora (mosses, lichens, flowering grasses) and no small amount of fauna (gentoo penguins, chinstrap penguins, southern giant petrels).  In Deception Island, the ship plunges through Neptune’s Bellows and into the flooded caldera.  Here you find hot springs, an abandoned whaling station, and thousands of cape petrels – along with a number of kelp gulls, brown and south polar skuas, and Antarctic terns.  Wilson’s storm petrels and black-bellied storm petrels also nest in the ruins of the whaling station in Whalers Bay.  As an alternative, you may be able to engage in activities near Half Moon Island.  Here chinstrap penguins and Weddell seals often haul out onto the beach near Cámara Base, an Argentine scientific research station.  Conditions on the Drake Passage determine the exact time of departure.  Overnight aboard the ship.  (B,L,D)

Your return voyage is far from lonely. While crossing the Drake, you’re again greeted by the vast array of seabirds remembered from the passage south.  But they seem a little more familiar to you now, and you to them.  Overnight aboard the ship.  (B,L,D)

Every adventure, no matter how grand, must eventually come to an end. It’s now time to disembark in Ushuaia, but with memories that will accompany you wherever your next adventure lies.  You will be transferred to the airport in Ushuaia for your return flight to your final destination.  (B)