Antarctica
with Abercrombie & Kent
Exploring the Great White Continent
If the thought of an Antarctic cruise holiday makes your teeth chatter, you might be surprised to know that, during A&K's November-to-March season, temperatures usually range between 20º and 45º F. Highs in the 50s are not uncommon. As a rule, the Falkland Islands are a bit warmer, with average highs in the 50s and lows in the 40s to high 30s. Weather on South Georgia Island is harder to predict. Its rugged topography makes for highly changeable weather patterns, with dull rain followed by fine sunny days. Tie your hat on! Sudden, intense katabatic winds and short-lived squalls known locally as "williwaws" are a fact of life on South Georgia.
Sights change rapidly during the austral summer season. Local flora and fauna must pack a lot of living into these few warm months, so each cruise departure is, in effect, travelling to a different Antarctica, Falklands or South Georgia Island. November to early December offer the spectacular courtship rituals of penguins and seabirds, wildflowers on the Falklands and South Georgia, and the highest level of research activity. Mid-December to January see the emergence of penguin chicks and seal pups, escalating whale sightings, and longer days creating incredible light conditions for photography. February to March bring whale sightings at their best, blooming snow algae, and increasingly numerous fur seals on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Though it isn't a passive destination, rest assured that travel to the Deep South doesn't require great physical exertion or feats of special fitness. Your guides know how to bring the incredible within reach for everyone on board, along the Antarctic Peninsula and on the Falklands and South Georgia too.
Crossing the Drake Passage on our way tot he rugged South Shetland Islands, our first landfall or Zodiac exploration could be Elephant Island, home to huge, raucous rookeries of chinstrap penguins. It was here in 1916 after their ship was crushed in packed ice that Sir Ernest Shackleton's crew was stranded. After 105 days huddled under two lifeboats, they were rescued by Shacleton who had sailed 800 miles in another lifeboat to get help on South Georgia Island.
Deception Island is still considered an active volcano and sailing through the narrow passage into its huge, flooded caldera is a thrilling experience. Places such as Livingston Island and Petermann Island skirting the Peninsula are more temperate than the mainland and support some grasses along with enormous numbers of chinstrap, gentoo and macaroni penguins, while the surrounding waters teem with humpback whales, elephant, fur and leopard seals.
In 1909, the dapper French explorer Dr. Jean - Baptiste Charcot brought his party to little Petermann Island. His s hip, the Pourquoi-pas?, was elaborately equipped with electric lights, a cellar of French wines, a well - stocked library and even a motor launch, hardly a surivalist's setting. And, in fact, the crew came through the winter quite handily, proof that one can enjoy the good things in life, even on an Antarctic expedition - a philosophy to which Radisson Seven Seas heartily subscribes!
Sailing around the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, we hope to navigate the Antarctic Sound often referred to as "iceberg alley," where glaciers flow from the 10,000 - foot Foster Plateau into calm waters, and dramatic cliffs are dense with nesting cape and petrels, Antarctic blue - eyed skags, kelp gulls and Antarctic terns. Depending on weather conditions, we may land on the volcanic Paulet Island with its large rookery of over a million pairs of Adelie penguins, as well as blue - eyed cormorants and many other species. Captain Anton Larsen and his men of the Nordenskjold expedition sought refuge here in 1903, and remains of his primitive hut still stand.
The Weddell Sea on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula is famous for Shackleton's epic voyage and the great tabular icebergs, which break off and drift into the Antarctic Sound. We'll see some of these huge mountains of ice as we head for Paradise Bay on the west side of the Peninsula. We hope to land at Almirante Brown Station, and cruise through the Lemaire Channel, possibly the most famous and visually beautiful place along the Peninsula, and nicknamed "Kodak Gap."
Often described as "The Alps in mid-ocean," this spectacularly picturesque island is actually a continuation of the Andes. It was visited by Captain James Cook in 1775 and Grytviken is the final resting place for Sir Ernest Shackleton. South Georgia has more than 160 glaciers and is home to millions of seabirds including the beautiful King penguin and the enormous wandering albatross. There are abandoned whaling stations, a legacy of a less environmentally conscious era, but now elephant and fur seals can be seen on many beaches.
Arriving on the wildlife - rich shores of the Falklands, a remote and proudly British scattering of some 420 rocky islands hundreds of miles from any other land mass, visitors are struck by a sense of having reached the ends of the earth. And obviously, for the whalers and clipper ships of an earlier era that lie stranded in the shallows around Port Stanley Harbour, this was the end of their voyaging. Like the now - extinct warrah or Falklands fox, they are part of the fascinating history of the Falkand Islands, whose 1,700 or so hardy inhabitants live primarily in the friendly little capital of Port Stanley. Here brightly colored wriggley - tin roofs contrast strikingly with the grays and browns of the surrounding hills, and there are tea houses, shops, pubs and a fine museum. In the remote, rarely visited Southeast Falkland Islands, rolling hills and huge clumps of tussock grass provide a habitat for cormorants, elephant seals, sea lions and penguins.
Itineraries:
Classic Antarctica |
Antarctica, South Georgia & the Falkland Islands |
Antarctica, South Goergia, the Falkland Islands & South Atlantic
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