Description

21 day Small Ship Cruise to Falklands, South Georgia & Antarctica aboard Sea Spirit.

ABUNDANT ANTARCTIC WILDLIFE
Antarctica is famous for its penguins. In the South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula you can go ashore at sites where gentoo, chinstrap, and adélie penguins come together in boisterous nesting colonies. Meeting with an inquisitive penguin chick is an experience not to be forgotten.
The windswept and treeless Falkland Islands are a birders’ paradise. The islands boast a great abundance and diversity of birdlife including five species of penguin.
In the island of South Georgia, seabirds and marine mammals are counted in the millions. The island’s beaches are packed with fur seals and elephant seals jostling for space alongside innumerable king penguins.
The waters of Antarctica are also home to impressive numbers of weddell, crabeater, and leopard seals. Humpback and killer whales can also be spotted feeding in bountiful seas.

INCREDIBLE POLAR SCENERY
The scenery in Antarctic is like nothing else on Earth. Massive, rugged, gleaming white mountains—covered on all but their sheerest faces by permanent snow and innumerable glaciers—rise from deep blue waters to form protected bays and scenic passages such as the renowned Lemaire Channel.
Floating everywhere in these pristine waterways are fragments of the continent’s frozen surface. From gargantuan icebergs that dwarf our ship to billowy blankets of brash ice crackling in the wake of our Zodiacs, ice is the ever-present backdrop of our voyage.
During the authentic once-per-year Crossing the Antarctic Circle cruise we will see rarely visited regions south of the Polar Circle, the vast, white landscapes, which are both bleak and beautiful, the weather is especially wild, and the waters are full of constantly shifting sea ice and enormous tabular icebergs.

HUMAN ENTERPRISE, PAST AND PRESENT
Antarctica has been the setting of many heroic adventures and journeys of discovery. On this voyage you will be following in the historic footsteps of early whalers, polar explorers, and scientific expeditions.
Visit Point Wild on Elephant Island, where Earnest Shackleton and his men spent part of their historic odyssey. Also in the South Shetland Islands are the historical remains of a whaling station at Deception Island, as well as a multitude of far-flung research bases operated by various countries.
In these areas you also have the opportunity to appreciate modern human ingenuity at scientific research stations of various nationalities. Some of these stations, such as Port Lockroy, even boast a museum, gift shop, and post office.