Few voyages ignite the imagination like a journey down to one of the planet’s most remote extreme and enchanting wilderness Antarctica. An adventure in its purest form only a handful of people will ever be lucky enough to experience the majestic beauty of these monochrome landscapes first-hand. The Antarctic Sound will be one of your first encounters of this whitewash kingdom located at the northerly tip of the Antarctic Peninsula - which sprawls up like a tentacle towards Tierra del Fuego, South America’s most southerly point, otherwise known as the ‘End of the World’. Taking its name from the first ship to brave the passageway between the peninsula and the Joinville Island groups back in 1902, the Sound is a raw sensory assault of imposing iceberg slabs broken away from the disintegrating Larsen Ice Shelf. Come face-to-face with stadium-sized islands of ice and meet the extraordinary birdlife that call this whitewash kingdom home. Watch on as colonies of Gentoo penguins hop around and cape petrels sweep overhead as the continent’s unique wildlife thrives around you. If you’re planning your first venture into Antarctica you’ll want to brush up on your photography skills in advance to capture this unforgiving continent in all of its unrestrained glory.
The Antarctic Sound is a stretch of water named after the first ship to have passed through this body of water from the Bransfield Strait to the Weddell Sea in 1902. The Antarctic eventually sank and crew and scientists had to spend quite some time in this area before they could be rescued. Sites that have to do with this story - like Hope Bay or Paulet Island - are sometimes visited. At Paulet, Hope Bay and Brown Bluff Adelie and Gentoo Penguins breed, as do Kelp Gulls and Cape Petrels, Snow Petrels and Skuas. The Sound’s main attractions are the spectacular tabular icebergs that come from the Larsen Ice Shelf further south.
Start Time
Jan 24 12:00PM NZDT