Over the next two days on the Drake Passage, you enjoy some of the same experiences encountered by the great polar explorers who first charted these regions: cool salt breezes, rolling seas, maybe even a fin whale spouting up sea spray. After passing the Antarctic Convergence during this journey, you will be in the circum-Antarctic upwelling zone. Not only does the marine life change, the avian life changes too. You may see wandering albatrosses, grey-headed albatrosses, black-browed albatrosses, light-mantled sooty albatrosses, cape pigeons, southern fulmars, Wilson's storm petrels, blue petrels, and Antarctic petrels.
Starting in the afternoon, you embark from Ushuaia, aptly nicknamed "The End of the World," and sail the mountain-fringed Beagle Channel, named after the ship HMS Beagle in honor of the first hydrographic survey of the coasts from 1826 to 1830. Part of the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago, the Beagle Channel separates the main Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego from various smaller islands and delineates part of the border between Chile and Argentina.
Take in the magnificent views as you imagine Darwin's first glimpses of glaciers when they reached the channel in 1833, which inspired him to document in his field notes, "It is scarcely possible to imagine anything more beautiful than the beryl-like blue of these glaciers, and especially as contrasted with the dead white of the upper expanse of snow."
Keep an eye out for endemic dolphins, sea lions, fur seals, and an impressive array of sea birds.
Start Date
Dec 27
to
End Date
Dec 27