Ultimate Antarctica - SafariWise Australia

DAY 1
Depart from home.

DAYS 2 - November 15, 2009
Arrive in Ushuaia, Argentina. A chance to explore town, relax and get ready for the adventure ahead. The hotel tonight is included.

DAY 3 - November 16, 2009
The morning is free to explore the southernmost city in the world. A bus tour of Tierra del Fuego National Park is optional. Late in the afternoon, we board our ship and set sail to the Falkland Islands. (B,D)

DAY 4 - November 17, 2009
We start our journey around the “Scotia Arc,” traveling with the prevailing current to the Falkland Islands. We’ll see a variety of birds, including our first black-browed and wandering albatrosses, and thousands of shearwaters and petrels; we also hope to see whales and dolphins.

On all our “at sea” days throughout the cruise, there will be photography and natural history discussions and slide presentations, plus, if wind conditions are right, great bird-flight shots can be made on deck. (All meals are included while aboard ship.)

DAYS 5-7 - November 18/20, 2009
During our three days in the Falklands we make landings on four substantially diverse islands with photogenic rockhopper penguins, beaches dotted with oystercatchers and kelp and upland geese, meadows punctuated with active Magellanic penguin burrows, and exciting black-browed albatross colonies.

DAYS 8-10 - November 21/23, 2009
Departing the Falklands, our ship crosses the Scotia Sea. Our course takes us across the Antarctic Convergence, the invisible boundary between the cold Antarctic water and the warmer currents flowing from the South Atlantic. We start to see our first icebergs. Our next landfall is South Georgia, some 800 miles from the Falklands. With favorable weather, we arrive at South Georgia the evening of Day 10.

DAYS 11-16 - November 24/29, 2009
This absolutely phenomenal island is 102 miles long and 24 miles wide—a mere speck in the vast Southern Ocean. At South Georgia, we'll find ourselves in stunning colonies of king penguins, macaroni penguins and wandering albatrosses.

We’ll visit the enormous king penguin colony of the incomparable Salisbury Plain for two very full days, Prion Island in the Bay of Isles for fur seals, wanderers and gentoo penguins, and Hercules Bay for macaronis, and spend a day each at wildlife-packed St. Andrews Bay and Cooper Bay for good measure.

The landscape, reminiscent of the last ice age, is dotted with vast glaciers, meltwater streams, alluvial beaches and offshore icebergs. Our six days should allow us to locate and photograph some of the more unusual nesting species, such as light-mantled sooty albatrosses, southern giant petrels and macaroni penguins, as well as let us take our time looking for the best possible photo situations in the vast king penguin colonies.

John Shaw has commented that his first visit to Salisbury Plain, with its tens of thousands of king penguins, was one of the two best wildlife photography days of his career, rivaled only by his best day in Kenya.

DAYS 17-19 - November 30 - December 2, 2009
We spend these days cruising the South Atlantic en route to Antarctica via the South Orkneys. Icebergs are now a familiar sight and depending on our timing we may choose to cruise the South Orkney’s iceberg graveyard in hopes of photographing a beautiful berg covered with penguins.

DAYS 20-24 - December 3/7, 2009
The Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetlands will offer photography that will pack these next exciting five days. We will visit Paulet Island with its massive Adelie colonies, cruise the Neumayer and Lemaire Channels—the quintessential Antarctic scenery locations—and also land our Zodiacs adjacent to gentoo and chinstrap penguin colonies and loafing beaches.

DAYS 25-26 - December 8/10, 2009
We spend these two days at sea, crossing the famous Drake Passage. Cape Horn looms on the horizon as we make our return trip and cruise up the Beagle Channel towards Ushuaia.

DAY 27 - December 11, 2009
Arriving in Ushuaia, we disembark the ship and transfer to the airport to depart for home. (B)