Antarctica Peninsula Cruise

Categories Winter & Spring Cruises Small Ship Cruises Antarctica Cruises Adventure & Eco Travel Cruises

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This exciting Antarctic Cruise, truly exploratory in nature, makes landings never before attempted by the Professor Molchanov or its sister ships and some cases by any other non-scientific vessels. These landing sites are in addition to the normal sites scheduled & shown in your itinerary & will be finally chosen from a short list with final decisions based entirely on local ice & weather conditions. These sites will not be pre-announced. Thus it is truly an Unknown Antarctica Cruise. Irresistible! You will of course receive a printed copy of the ships cruise staff log recording all you see.

Itinerary

In the afternoon, we embark in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world located at the Beagle Channel and sail through this scenic waterway for the rest of the evening.

During these two days we will sail across the Drake Passage. When we cross the Antarctic Convergence, we arrive in the circum-Antarctic up welling zone. In this area we may meet Wandering Albatrosses, Grey Headed Albatrosses, Black-browed Albatrosses, Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses, Cape Pigeons, Southern Fulmars, Wilsons Storm Petrels, Blue Petrels and Antarctic Petrels.

We intend to explore Low Island, an island 9 miles long and 5 miles wide, situated ca. 14 miles south east of Smith Island, in the Souh Shetland Islands. As the name already suspects, the island has a low elevation and is inconspicuous. The island was known to sealers as early as the beginning of the 19th century.

We will sail along the Wright Ice Piedmont at the Antarctic Continent at Graham Land, mapped in the fifties of the last century based on photographs taken between 1955-57. The piedmont was named after the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright who made the first flight with an aero plane in December 1903.

Exploration of Roe Island, an island lying in the entrance of the Curtiss Bay, just about 2 miles west of Graham Land (Antarctic continent), named after the Britsish pioneer aircraft designerAlliott Verdon-Roe, who made aircrafts since 1908.

Seaplane Point is situated a few miles of Roe Island at the Antarctic Continent. It was named in association with Curtiss Bay, after Glenn Curtiss, an American engineer who pioneered sea-planes from 1911.

We stay on the west coast of Graham Land and reach Valdivia Point, named after the German ship Valdivia, by the Swedish Antarctic Expededition of Nordenskj�ld. Further west we will call Challenger Island and Bluff Island.

We reach the western side of Brabant Island and will explore Avicenna Bay, Buls Bay and Freud Passage.

At the north east cost of Anvers Island we will visit Fournier Bay, probably first sighted by a German expedition under the command of Dallmann in 1873-74, chartered by the French Antarctic expedition under Charcot (1903-05) and named after the French navy admiral Ernest Fournier.

In Inverleith harbour (also on the nort east coast of Anvers), we will make a landing and can spot an Antarctic Tern colony and may observe Weddell Seals.

We will explore the Flandres Bay along the west coast of Graham Land (Antarctic Continent), explored by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition in 1898 under Gerlache.

The Lemaire Channel is not unknown, but we will sail through this channel in a different way; with zodiacs ahead of the mother vessel. We will also make a landing on Deloncle Bay in the Lemaire Channel

We make a final landing at the continent at Waddington Bay, offering a beautiful scenery and we may observe Crabeater Seals and Weddell Seals on the ice-floes and possibilities to spot Minke Whales and we sail through the French Passage, heading for Ushuaia, Argentina.

Two full days in the Drake Passage, where we have again a chance of seeing many seabirds and to take advantage of the knowledge of our lecture team.

Disembark after breakfast.