Antarctica & the Polar Circle - Deep South Discovery Voyage

You begin your voyage in Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world. In the afternoon, you sail through the Beagle Channel from Tierra del Fuego.

Over the next two days on the Drake Passage, you experience rolling seas, cool breezes, and may see a fin whale. After crossing the Antarctic Convergence, you enter the circum-Antarctic upwelling zone, where marine life and seabirds, including albatrosses and petrels, become more common.

Options for Antarctic Peninsula activities are many, and no less great during the late summer. Humpback whales are prolific in this region, gorging themselves on krill before their migration north. The penguin chicks are also fledging, stirring up activity on the beaches while sleek leopard seals lie in wait, poised to attack the less fortunate ones.
 
Sites for your Antarctic adventures may include: 
 
Livingston Island
Here you find a wide variety of gentoo and chinstrap penguins on Hannah Point, as well as southern giant petrels and elephant seals hauling out onto the beach. 
 
Deception Island
Actually, a subducted crater, this island opens into the sea and creates a natural harbor for the ship. An abandoned whaling station, and multiple bird species – cape petrels, kelp gulls, brown and south polar skuas, and Antarctic terns – can be seen here. Wilson’s storm petrels and black-bellied storm petrels also nest in the ruins of the whaling station in Whalers Bay. 
 
Cuverville Island
A small precipitous island nestled between the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula and Rongé Island, Cuverville houses a large colony of gentoo penguins and breeding pairs of brown skuas. 
 
Neko Harbour
An epic landscape of mammoth glaciers and endless wind-carved snow, Neko Harbour offers opportunities for a Zodiac cruise and landing that afford the closest views of the surrounding alpine peaks. You might also be able to set foot on the continent here. 
 
Paradise Bay
You could take a Zodiac cruise in these sprawling, ice-flecked waters, where you have a good chance of seeing humpback and minke whales. 
 
Pléneau & Petermann Islands
If the ice allows it, you may sail through the Lemaire Channel in search of Adélie penguins and blue-eyed shags. There’s also a good chance you’ll encounter humpback and minke whales as well as leopard seals. 
 
Crystal Sound
Your journey takes you south along the Argentine Islands to this ice-packed body of water, and from here across the Polar Circle in the morning. 
 
Detaille Island
You may make a landing at an abandoned British research station here, taking in the island’s lofty mountains and imposing glaciers. 
 
Fish Islands
Further north you encounter one of the southernmost Adélie penguin and blue-eyed shag colonies in the Antarctic Peninsula. 
 
Melchior Islands
These islands offer a beautiful landscape rich with icebergs. Leopard seals, crabeater seals, and whales are found here, and there are excellent opportunities for diving. 
 
Conditions on the Drake Passage determine the exact time of departure.

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.

Every adventure, no matter how grand, must eventually come to an end. It’s now time to disembark in Ushuaia, but with memories that accompany you wherever your next adventure lies.