Southern explorations: Antarctic cruise offers vistas, wildlife, education and friendships
The humpback whale gently surfaced a mere 30 feet in front of our Zodiac gently rocking the boat and a nearby bergy bit of ice. It was the perfect end to an 18-day exploration cruise through the rugged fjords, mountains and ice of Chilean Patagonia and the Antarctic Peninsula. It was my retirement present to myself and fulfilled my bucket list of reaching all seven continents.
This was not your ordinary cruise. This was an expedition cruise that explored the history, botany, geography and wildlife of two of the most remote places on earth. We traded the glitzy buffets, bars and entertainment of the big cruises for informative talks and shore excursions with scientists and regional experts, wide decks for wildlife watching and a hold full of Zodiacs, kayaks, camping gear and snowshoes for exploring the places we visited. As citizen scientists, we recorded our observation with apps that uploaded our observations to the growing databases of research on the regions. We were able to see climate change in action. Migration patterns for wildlife are changing as sea ice disappears and food sources shift. Avian flu is in southern South America and could reach Antarctica this year with migrating birds.
Hurtigruten Expeditions has been sailing in remote parts of the world since 1893 when it pioneered regular ferry service along the Norwegian coast. Our hybrid-powered ship, the MS Fritjof Nansen is the newest in Hurtigruten’s fleet and is rated as the most sustainable cruise ship in the world. It proved to be a wonderfully comfortable floating home for the 292 of us. Our meals were sourced locally, and our activities were planned to minimize our environmental impact. The crew treated us like family, quickly learning our names and readily answering our questions. State-of-the-art lectures and science facilities supported our exploration activities. All our lectures were translated into English, German and French. This cruise for the Nansen had started in Reykjavik, Iceland in early August and sailed through the Arctic’s Northwest Passage and down the Pacific coast to Valparaiso, Chile, where I met the ship in late October.
Patagonia stretches 1,500 miles south to Tierra de Fuego through a dense network of rugged fjords and mountains. The coastal mountains dropped straight into the fjords and the Andes Mountains to the east rose over 10,000 feet. The cold winds and rain off the Pacific Ocean and the Southern Icefields shaped the southern beech and cypress forests into beautiful, natural sculptures. We were lucky, the weather turned sunny enough to enjoy sitting on the observation deck or in the hot tubs.
We made three ports of call as we sailed south. Castro on Chiloé Island is Chile’s third oldest city and a UNESCO World Heritage site for its colorful churches built by the Jesuits. The churches, including the crown jewel, Iglesia San Francisco de Castro (St. Francis Church) in Castro’s town square, were built with European architecture using local boat building techniques. Fishing, salmon farming and tourism drive the economy.
Puerto Edén hugs the shoreline along a narrow fjord off Wellington Island and is only accessible by boat and a monthly supply ferry. There are no roads here, only board walks through the community tucked just above the tideline. It is home to the last of the indigenous seafaring Kawésqar people who once lived throughout Patagonia until the Spanish arrived. Our guides shared the challenges of living in this remote community and efforts to preserve their heritage.
Torres del Paine National Park is the crown jewel of the southern Chilean Andes. Best known for the Las Torres, three massive granite towers that rise more than 9,000 feet dominating views when they aren’t obscured by clouds and wind whipping off the Grey Glacier. The park is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve for its unique geology and plant communities tucked between the eastern Andes and the beginning of the Argentine Patagonia steppe region. We spotted guanaco, a cousin of the llama; silver fox; and high overhead, huge condors drifting on the winds. We hiked along a black sand beach on Lake Grey to observe a huge, icy blue iceberg off the Gray Glacier that had blown to the end of the lake.
We continued through parts of the Straits of Magellan and the Beagle Channel to our jump off point at Puerto Williams and the beginning of our two-day crossing of the Drake Passage. The Drake Passage was and still is notorious among sailors. Storms and waves here have claimed many ships and crew. We were lucky, our passage to and from Antarctica was mixture of sun and clouds with moderate seas. Albatrosses, petrels, terns and whales made appearances as they migrated south with us for the summer breeding season.
Tourism in Antarctica is managed by the terms of the Antarctic Treaty and the protocols of the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators to maintain the pristine environment of the peninsula. There were specific protocols on how close we could get to the wildlife and all our equipment was meticulously cleaned after each landing to reduce the introduction of diseases and nonnative organisms.
The weather and seas around the Antarctic Peninsula determined where we could land. Many of the protected bays are sites of old whaling stations and active research stations. Deception Island is a flooded caldera that was perfect for a whaling station. We explored the ruins and saw our first gentoo penguins. They skeptically watched the 40 people who did a polar plunge. The water and the air were both just 28 degrees.
At Paradise Bay and the Argentine Antarctic Institute’s Brown Station, the fog didn’t keep us from going ashore to observe penguins and birds and hike to a hilltop for a spectacular view of the bay. As if on cue, the Perseverance, a French two-masted sailing vessel appeared out of the fog as an eerie reminder of the early days of exploration. A few adventurous travelers opted to snow camp on a nearby island. They didn’t get much sleep, but they did have an almost mystical encounter with the silence and beauty of the bay. A little dusting of snow added to the magic.
Port Lockroy is an old British military base turned museum and the most southerly post office in the world. We met the crew from the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust who man the station in the summer and help with efforts to restore and maintain old British bases and whaling stations in the region. We purchased postcards that the UKAHT crew hand-stamped and sent via other cruise ships to the British Falkland Islands to be dropped in the Royal Mail. The postcard I sent to my husband took about a month to get home. The station crew relies heavily on cruise ships for transportation to and from the base as well as showers and laundry because there is no fresh water at the station.
Fog kept us from landing at Port Charcot, but it didn’t keep us from sailing the narrow Lemaire Channel and Zodiac cruising in Hidden Bay. The jagged vertical cliffs around us came straight down into the water almost close enough to touch. Snow squalls added an ethereal feeling. Zodiac cruising took us through the last of the winter sea ice and past small icebergs arrayed in shades of blue and white. The water was a little rough and that made us realize how small we were in this massive landscape.
We spent our last day in a beautiful bay at the end of the Neumayer Channel. Bright sun illuminated the rugged peaks known as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the head of the bay. Numerous gentoo penguin colonies crowded the brows of the small hills around the bay waiting for the snow to melt so they could begin breeding. A few Weddel seals were sleeping on the snow. The British once had a runway on top of a nearby glacier and left behind the Damoy Hut that served as the “airport terminal” where stranded fliers could safely get out of the weather. The shelves in the cabin were lined with vintage food cans and equipment. The bunk room was ready for its next visitor. A small group of folks went snowshoeing to a nearby hill.
Late in the afternoon while Zodiac cruising, three humpback whales surfaced 100 yards away, feeding on krill. One surfaced just 30 feet in front of our Zodiac. We were able to photograph the tail of another one and, through an international database, found that whale had originally been spotted in Peru in 2017 and in another part of Antarctica in 2022.
The return trip across the Drake Passage was a time of reflection. The tally of wildlife included four kinds of seals, three blue whales and several humpbacks, fin whales and orcas. Our birders recorded 89 distinct species. We’d traveled over 3,300 nautical miles and experienced some of the most unique landscapes in the world. We made new friends. I would go again in a heartbeat.