Antarctica - Whale Watching

You begin your voyage in Ushuaia, Argentina, widely known as the southernmost city in the world, at the southern tip of South America. In the afternoon, you board the ship in this town on Tierra del Fuego, often called “The End of the World,” and sail through the Beagle Channel for the rest of the evening.

During the following two days on the Drake Passage, you travel through rolling seas and cool conditions and may see a fin whale. After crossing the Antarctic Convergence, where cold and warmer waters meet, you enter an area where marine life and seabirds become more common. You may see wandering, grey-headed, black-browed, and light-mantled sooty albatrosses, as well as cape pigeons, southern fulmars, and several types of petrels.

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:  
 
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, Neko Harbour offers opportunities for a Zodiac cruise and landing that afford the closest views of the surrounding alpine peaks.
 
Paradise Bay
You may be able to take a Zodiac cruise in these sprawling, ice-flecked waters, where there’s a good chance you’ll encounter humpback and minke whales.

Pléneau & Petermann Islands
If the ice allows it, you could sail through the Lemaire Channel in search of humpback and minke whales, as well as leopard seals.

Port Lockroy
After sailing through the Neumayer Channel, you may 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. 
 
At the nearby sites, such as Damoy Point there may be the opportunity for snowshoeing to the old ski-way, which is also one of the favorite camping sites.
 
Wilhelmina Bay & Guvernøren
This is a great place to spot humpback whales. You also may embark on a Zodiac cruise ending at the ghostly wreck of the Guvernøren, a whaling vessel that caught fire here in 1915. Around the Melchior Islands, amid a frozen landscape peopled with icebergs, you may encounter even more whales, leopard seals, and crabeater seals.

Charlotte Bay
You might encounter a variety of wildlife, including gentoo penguins, Weddell seals and possibly some migrating whale species such as humpback whales or minke whales.

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 will accompany you wherever your next adventure lies.