Arrive in Anchorage and transfer to your group hotel. Upon check-in, the reception staff provides you with cabin tags. Please fill out the luggage tags clearly, showing your name and cabin number to allow them to deliver your luggage to your cabin. Enjoy a welcome drink and meet fellow expeditioners at our voyage briefing this evening. 

Transfer to Anchorage airport, board your charter flight to Nome and embark the Sylvia Earle. After boarding, there’s time to settle into your cabin before the important safety briefings. This evening meet your expedition team and crew at the Captain’s Welcome Dinner. In the evening, meet the expedition team and crew at the Captain’s Welcome Dinner.

Informative briefings prepare you for upcoming landings, and sightings of beluga and grey whales enchant as you cross Bering Strait to Chukotka. In Provideniya, the administrative center, be cleared into Russia and if time allows, visit the museum of history and culture, and perhaps take in a traditional Yupik dance performance.

Chukchi villagers warmly welcome you into Lorino with traditional dance, samples of local delicacies and the chance to observe life in this outpost of reindeer herders and marine mammal hunters. Weather and sea permitting, you land at Cape Dezhnev, Eurasia’s easternmost point, to explore the ancient Inuit settlement of Naukan, and the remains of a Soviet-era research center (both now abandoned). Note the massive whale bones, somehow brought up the cliffs for building material.

Enjoy informative talks from our team of experts as your Captain navigates an approach to Wrangel Island. Although pack ice can block the way, it varies from year to year. Even if the way is clear, it’s likely you’ll delight in sea ice in the upcoming days.

Your exploration of Wrangel and Herald Islands depends on ice and weather conditions. Whether searching pack ice for polar bears, ringed seals and walrus, or Zodiac cruising beneath slopes dotted with polar bears (adults and cubs) and walrus haulouts, be joined by local rangers keen to share their knowledge and love of this special place. Follow them across a vast landscape in search of reindeer, musk oxen and arctic fox. Search for fossilized remains of the woolly mammoth, a kaleidoscope of wildflowers and listen to tales of Inuit and Chukchi hunters, the first European explorers and the survivors of the Karluk disaster.

As you sail south, reflect on the wonders you’ve seen as you edit photos, enjoy entertaining talks or treat yourself to a gym workout and massage in the wellness centre.

Weather permitting and with a wary eye for polar bears, you land on Kolyuchin Island, with its abandoned meteorological station and some of the Arctic’s most spectacular bird cliffs, where nesting puffins, guillemots and gulls are easily photographed. The tidal estuary of Kolyuchin Inlet offers wildflowers and a host of birds from yellow-billed loons to endemic emperor geese, as well as remains of dwelling mounds and graves of past inhabitants.

In the late afternoon, arrive at Arakamchechen archipelago, where humpback, grey and bowhead whales are known to feed in the waters. Time permitting this afternoon or tomorrow morning, you may have the chance to quietly approach a walrus haulout, discover sea cliffs on nearby Nuneangan Island - home to guillemots, tufted puffins and crested auklets, or Penkigngey Bay, a long fjord, offers tundra wildflower walks and a scenic dip in hot springs.

On Ytytygran Island, visit Whale Bone Alley, where bones are thickly strewn for half a kilometer along the beach, and ‘meat pits’ attest to a busy Chukchi whaling camp. Still standing, immense bowhead whale jawbones and ribs form a monumental, ceremonial archway, while just offshore grey whales are frequently seen feeding. In Provideniya, bid a fond farewell to Russia and begin the return voyage across the Bering Sea.

As we pass through Bering Strait, separating Russia and North America by only 100 kilometers / 60 miles, we hope to see beluga and grey whales. Conditions permitting, land at King Island and explore the eerie, ancient village Ukivok, now abandoned after a tragic run of events. Murres and kittiwakes frequent the surrounding sea cliffs. As you depart, celebrate the voyage end with a farewell dinner.

Disembark in Nome, transfer to the airport and board your charter flight to Anchorage, where you spend the night.  

Enjoy free time until check-out before continuing your journey.