Silver Endeavour - Antarctica Bridge Fly-Cruise

Where this cruise calls, day by day

7 ports over 6 Nights.

1. Day 1

   King George Island

   AntarcticaDepart

   The largest of the South Shetlands and the most built-up place in the region — a dozen countries run stations here, several within sight of each other around Maxwell Bay. It is not scenic by Antarctic standards but it is interesting: fuel tanks, antenna farms, a Russian Orthodox church, and a gravel airstrip that fly-cruise passengers use to skip the Drake Passage. Wildlife is present but scattered.

   • Chile's Frei Base and Russia's Bellingshausen Station around Maxwell Bay
   • Trinity Church, the Orthodox chapel above Bellingshausen
   • Poland's Arctowski Station in Admiralty Bay
   • Teniente Marsh airstrip, the fly-cruise gateway

   Getting ashore

   Zodiac landings at station beaches; the airstrip serves fly-cruise transfers rather than ships.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (Antarctic season)

2. Day 2

   Cuverville Island

   AntarcticaPort

   Cuverville sits in the Errera Channel and holds one of the largest gentoo colonies on the Antarctic Peninsula — several thousand pairs spread up the scree behind a cobble beach. The channel around it usually collects grounded icebergs, so the zodiac cruise is often as good as the landing. Expect noise, smell and pink guano-stained snow highways where the penguins commute to the water.

   • Large gentoo penguin rookery on the island's lower slopes
   • Grounded icebergs in the Errera Channel
   • Kelp gulls, snowy sheathbills and skuas working the colony edges
   • Leopard seals patrolling offshore

   Getting ashore

   Zodiac landing plus a zodiac cruise among the bergs; no facilities ashore.

   Best months

   Dec-Feb (chicks from late December)

3. Day 3

   Paradise Bay

   AntarcticaPort

   Whalers named this bay, and for once the name holds up — it is a sheltered basin of glacier fronts and floating brash on the peninsula's west coast. Two research stations sit on its shores, Argentina's Almirante Brown and Chile's Gonzalez Videla at Waterboat Point, and one of them is usually the excuse for a landing. Most of the time here is spent in zodiacs, drifting under ice cliffs and watching for calving.

   • Almirante Brown Station and the hill climb behind it
   • Gonzalez Videla Station at Waterboat Point, with gentoos nesting between the buildings
   • Skontorp Cove's ice cliffs and blue-eyed shag colony
   • Zodiac cruising among grounded bergs

   Getting ashore

   Zodiac landing or zodiac cruise depending on ice and swell; there is no pier.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (Antarctic season)

4. Day 4

   Lemaire Channel (Scenic Cruising)

   AntarcticaPort

   A seven-mile slot between Booth Island and the Graham Land mainland, barely a mile wide at its narrowest, with cliffs going straight up on both sides. Photographers nicknamed it Kodak Gap for good reason: on a still day the water mirrors the walls and everyone is on deck. Ice frequently blocks the southern end, in which case the captain reverses out and nobody gets the picture.

   • The twin spires of Cape Renard at the northern entrance
   • Booth Island's ridgeline rising directly off the port rail
   • Crabeater seals hauled out on drifting floes
   • Reflections in the channel on a windless morning

   Getting ashore

   Scenic cruising only — no landing, and the transit is abandoned if pack ice fills the channel.

   Best months

   Dec-Feb (ice usually clears later in the season)

5. Day 5

   Neko Harbour

   AntarcticaPort

   Neko Harbour is one of the few places where passengers set foot on the Antarctic mainland rather than an offshore island, which is why expedition leaders push hard to make it happen. There is a gentoo colony on the rocks, an Argentine refuge hut, and a hill behind the beach that gives a view over Andvord Bay. The glacier at the head of the harbour calves regularly, and staff keep everyone well up the beach because the wave that follows is not theoretical.

   • Continental landing on the Antarctic mainland
   • Gentoo penguin colony above the landing beach
   • The viewpoint climb over Andvord Bay
   • Calving face of the Neko glacier

   Getting ashore

   Zodiac landing, weather and ice permitting; landings are cancelled often.

   Best months

   Dec-Feb (chicks visible from late December)

6. Day 6

   Deception Island

   AntarcticaPort

   Deception is a flooded volcanic caldera in the South Shetlands, and ships sail into the crater through a gap in the wall called Neptune's Bellows that looks far too narrow from the bow. Inside is Port Foster, a black-sand harbour ringed by ash slopes. Whalers Bay holds the rusted boilers and tanks of an abandoned whaling station and the wrecked remains of a British base, all half-buried by a 1969 eruption.

   • Neptune's Bellows, the caldera entrance
   • Whalers Bay's rusting boilers, tanks and the ruins of Base B
   • Baily Head's very large chinstrap penguin colony (landing rarely possible)
   • Geothermally warmed shallows at Pendulum Cove

   Getting ashore

   The ship sails inside the caldera and passengers go ashore by zodiac; swell at the entrance sometimes cancels the call.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (Antarctic season)

7. Day 7

   King George Island

   AntarcticaArrive

   The largest of the South Shetlands and the most built-up place in the region — a dozen countries run stations here, several within sight of each other around Maxwell Bay. It is not scenic by Antarctic standards but it is interesting: fuel tanks, antenna farms, a Russian Orthodox church, and a gravel airstrip that fly-cruise passengers use to skip the Drake Passage. Wildlife is present but scattered.

   • Chile's Frei Base and Russia's Bellingshausen Station around Maxwell Bay
   • Trinity Church, the Orthodox chapel above Bellingshausen
   • Poland's Arctowski Station in Admiralty Bay
   • Teniente Marsh airstrip, the fly-cruise gateway

   Getting ashore

   Zodiac landings at station beaches; the airstrip serves fly-cruise transfers rather than ships.

   Best months

   Nov-Mar (Antarctic season)