For every day that we were in Antarctica, there were excursions away from the ship – hikes on shore, zodiac cruises, special ops boat cruises, kayak paddling trips, submarine dives, and science zodiac cruises to gather info for the science labs. Here are some behind-the-scenes notes.

When we arrived at our venue for the day, the guides would go out an hour early in zodiacs, the special ops, and the dive boat to look around the area for things to see. The land guides would go on land to strike out our hiking paths.

We had to suit up for each excursion for cold and wet weather. In this photo I’m wearing rubber-and-neoprene boots, double socks, long underwear leggings, fleece-lined pants, waterproof overpants, long underwear top, base layer top, fleece pullover, puffy jacket, red waterproof expedition jacket, glove liners, waterproof gloves, neck gator, fleece-line hat, and sometimes sunglasses. The black life jacket goes on last. It takes a good 20 minutes to put on all of this gear.

Most trips from the ship departed from the hanger level, and we had to stand in line to wait for our turn on a boat.

On the land excursions, we saw consistent things for each visit. Hiking poles, tons of penguins, orange poles to mark the trail, and snow steps on steep trails.

On our trips, we had other guests beside us who were in a lot of our photos. It was hard to avoid other tourists.

There are strict protocols for biosecurity to prevent humans from tracking pollution and pathogens onto the land. All of our gear had to be scrutinized before we could go on land to make sure we weren’t going to harm the Antarctic environment.

Then, after taking an excursion, when we arrived back at the ship we had to be powerwashed and our boots had to be disinfected as we walked through a foot bath. It was quite the production.

Avian flu has arrived in Antarctica, and while it is harming the penguins, it is particularly devastating to the elephant seal population. This is why we have to take so many precautions when we come into contact with the natural environment.

The ship loaned us most of our outerwear. This morning, we had to put our boots out in the hallway for collection. The staff had to clean them and get them ready for guests on a future cruise. Even though the boots had been powerwashed on our feet, they are now investigated with magnifying glasses and little picks to remove debris and make sure the boots are totally clean for the next cruise.

All of this effort was worth it, though, to be able to explore the White Continent and have the experience of a lifetime.

We’ve been doing our best to protect all of Antarctica including these little guys:

We’re spending a total of 11 nights on this ship. There are 367 guests. Most are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, but there are a few in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Most seem to be married couples, but there are several mother-daughter and father-son pairs.

There are 265 crew from 40 countries. This might seem like a lot of staff, it takes a lot to keep everything running. Deck officers in charge of navigation, engineers, outdoor maintenance, cooks, dishwashers, dining room servers, housekeeping, expedition guides, guest services, laundry, IT, and others.

Compare this to the largest cruise ship on the water today which can hold almost 10,000 people – 7,600 passengers and 2,350 crew.

The ship was built and launched in 2021. It is the largest, most powerful expedition vessel on the market, and it was purpose-built to navigate the Great Lakes and the Antarctic. During the summer season in the southern hemisphere, it travels to Antarctica, and during the summer season in the northern hemisphere, it travels around the Great Lakes.

The ship has six levels plus a hanger at the bottom where the zodiacs, kayaks, special ops boats, and submarines are kept. On of the things that distinguish this ship from other cruise ships is the hanger. I saw another cruise ship yesterday that had to use a winch to haul zodiacs out of the water and up onto the top deck for storage. The other things that distinguish this ship from other cruise ships are the lecture auditorium, the special ops boats, and the submarines.

We reserved a basic cabin which has been a perfectly nice size with a king bed, a desk, and a little sofa area. Plus there is a large picture window that opens so you can hear the ocean and take photos of penguins, icebergs, and landscape passing by.

There are six restaurants on board. Four are buffet. World Cafe has a new line-up every day with a meat carving station, various vegetables and rice dishes, salad bar, and pizza station. There is a sushi bar, a grill with burgers and steaks, and Mamsen’s which serves typical Norwegian fare. There is a bakery that makes fresh bread, cookies, muffins, and desserts all day long. There are also two sit-down restaurants which require reservations and which we’ve saved for the end of our trip to celebrate in style.

Altogether, the food has been really good – fresh, interesting, multi-cultural, and catering to all diets.

The ship has a lecture hall which hosts the daily briefings, science lectures, films, and other presentations. There are also other learning experiences around the ship.

There is a spa, fitness center, and hair salon. The pool area has a dry sauna, steam room, outdoor hot tub, a bucket shower that dumps cold water on your head, an “experience shower” that blasts water at you from all directions, and a snow grotto which is a shower that snows on you. For real.

In addition, there is a gift shop, a travel consultant where you can book more Viking trips, Excursion Central where you can talk to guides and scientists, a “business center” which has a couple of laptops for guest use, and of course, guest services where you can get all sorts of things taken care of. There are also laundry facilities which have come in handy since we’re traveling for 3 weeks.

There are various lounge areas, libraries, and bars scattered around the ship where you can relax, watch the scenery pass by, read a book, work on a puzzle, have a cocktail, and meet other guests.

And don’t forget the outdoor decks on various levels which are great for whale watching, sunsets, exercise laps, personal reflection, and ship-wide parties.

Viking has created an amazing environment on this ship which allows for relaxation, intellectual growth, and holy-cow experiences. I would do this trip again in a heartbeat.

It is Wednesday, and today was our last day of excursions. We spent a full day moored at Danco Island in the Errera Channel. The island is 1 mile long and 0.3 miles wide, and it has the largest penguin colony that we’ve seen on this voyage. There are hundreds of penguins here!

Our zodiac excursion took us to a rocky beach, and there were penguins there to greet us. In fact, one started to waddle towards me, and I had to back up to maintain my distance as it came within five feet of me.

From there we zigzagged up the mountain. At the top of our path, there was a large area with penguins roosting. There were a couple of penguins highways that went from that roost area to others higher up the mountain. It was so cute to see the birds waddling through the snow to go from one place to another.

As we walked back down the mountain, we saw penguins taking highways from the roost area down to the shore to go feed in the water.

We did see a couple of empty egg shells where predator birds had eaten the babies. We also saw a few penguin skeletons where seals had been feeding. Circle of life.

As we rode the zodiac back to the ship, we encountered huge groups of penguins feeding on krill in the bay. I also got a great video of several penguins flying through the air in from of our zodiac. They are like porpoises that fly up out of the water and then dive back in.

The ship started out of the bay at 5 pm and is heading to the Drake Passage. We will pass the 60 degree latitude and officially leave Antarctic waters at 9 pm.  It’s a bittersweet moment. It’s been such an amazing week down here, and I’ve seen and experienced things I never expected when we booked this trip.

As we enter the Drake Passage later this evening, it seems that we will get the Drake Lake again. We have been fortunate with great weather on this trip, and it appears that the Gods of Calm Water will be with us again.

We’ll spend the next day and a half traveling 544 nautical miles on the open ocean and will arrive in Ushuaia on Friday.

And just as I was about to publish this post, three whales swam by to bid us farewell:

We spent the morning at Brown Station located in Paradise Harbor.

I woke up at 7:30 am, opened the window shade, and saw two whales swimming in the harbor. I watched them for an hour, and then we had to get ready for our first excursion of the day. Our excursion was another trip on the special ops boat, and we went whale-watching in the harbor! We spent half an hour in the middle of the water with whales surfacing and diving and they fed on krill. We also got a whiff of the whales, and boy are they stinky! (I think it was the air that came out of their blowholes.)

Brown Station is an Argentine research station on a small peninsula on the continent. The scientists don’t arrive until next month, so we were able to go to shore and walk around. This is a research station, on the continent, with a penguin colony. As our guide said, “Check, check, check!”

We arrived at the shore and had to climb up several steps to get up to the station. It was a little hairy, especially for some of the older people on this trip.

We were able to hike up the hill above the research station and go to a lookout point over the harbor. We saw a mother whale and her calf traveling by and had beautiful views of the harbor.

On the back side of the peninsula, there was a little cove with huge glaciers spilling into it and icebergs all around. We also saw several Weddell seals having a nap on the other side of the cove.

On the way back to the zodiac, I stopped to watch the penguins waddle around. There were a couple of penguin highways (penguin trails) that crossed our human trail, so I had to wait for penguins to pass by before I could continue on my way. We’ve been told not to stand on the penguin highways or get too near to the penguins, because we don’t want to discourage them from traveling freely around their habitat.

We came back to the ship in time for a leisurely lunch. As we ate, we saw several more whales swimming back and forth alongside the ship, feeding on krill. Olivia came on the intercom and said, “We have whales all around us, on the starboard side, on the port side, off the bow, off the stern. It’s a bit of a whale soup out there!” It was pretty incredible.

After lunch, we went to our cabin to rest. At 3 pm, Olivia came on the intercom and said, “Good afternoon, I’m sorry to bother you during your afternoon rest, but we see a large group of orcas up ahead so we’re going to detour to see if we can get close to them.” Of course, everyone rushed to the bow of the ship!

There were 15 or so orcas hunting in packs, back and forth in front of the ship. We also saw three or four humpback whales feeding out there including a baby, so there was some drama amongst us as we worried about the baby. It appears to have gotten away unharmed. Once again, an amazing experience.

We ended the day with a fancy dinner at one of the sit-down restaurants on the ship. Up until now, we had been eating at the buffet restaurants, so it was fun to have a different dinner experience.

We spent the night in a picturesque little harbor surrounded by mountains, glaciers, icebergs, and whales.

I was in my pajamas and in bed by 9:30 after another remarkable day.

The submarine dive was amazing!

When I first learned that it was possible to go on a submarine dive on this trip, I thought, “No way.” I am claustrophobic and scared of drowning, so I didn’t think I would have the courage to go on a dive. Then I read several books about Antarctica, and I thought, “I want to see what’s under the ice.”

When we first arrived on the ship, we had the option to sign up for the sub. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to do it, but I didn’t want to rule it out. I took the physical test which consisted of going from a standing position to sitting down on a chair to standing again all while keeping your hands in the air so you couldn’t use your hands to support yourself. I also signed a waiver and got weighed. The weight in the sub has to be carefully balanced, so they weigh each passenger and then figure out the best groups of people for each dive.

Before the dive, the dive support boat drives around the area where we are stationed for the day, looking for a good spot for the dive. The boat has equipment on board that can scan the ocean floor and read the topography. Once the boat finds a good spot, the sub drives over to that location.

We took a zodiac over to the submarine. We had to step from the boat onto the top of the sub and then climb down through the hatch.

The sub has room for six passengers and the pilot. We were each assigned a specific seat based on our weight, and I was in seat 2 right next to the pilot, Jessica.

Once we were all on board, Jess gave us a safety briefing, locked the hatch, and radioed the support boat to go through the cross-check list. Then we started down. The passenger seats were in a big plexiglass bubble, so it didn’t feel claustrophobic at all. It was not scary in the least.

As you go deeper underwater, the colors with longer wave lengths disappear first. Blue has the shortest wavelengths, so things underwater look blue until the sub’s spotlights are turned on.

We went down to 362 feet below the surface and hovered about 10 feet above the sea floor. It took us about 10 minutes to get down there. 

The sub hadn’t explored this area before, so Jess was excited to see what we could see. There was a rocky hill in front of us, and we drove back and forth in front of it as we slowly went up the hill. We saw lots of things attached to the rock – several types of sea stars (starfish), sponges, jellies (jellyfish), sea cucumbers, coral, anemone, kelp. 

We spent about 30 minutes looking around as we gradually ascended to about 50 feet below the surface, and then we wrapped up the dive and motored back up. I’m so glad I conquered my fears and took the plunge into the deep. It was an incredible experience!

Obligatory penguin photos. You’re welcome.

Today was a big day!

Recess Cove is a protected cove with a spit of land where we took our hike. The previous two days on the continent had been very stormy, so there were lots of new icebergs in the cove. Olivia told us we were lucky to see this, because otherwise, it would just be a mess of growlers around the cove.

Our zodiac dropped us off on a rocky beach, and then we walked up some snow steps for a tour around the land. Our previous shore excursions were on islands, but today was our first time stepping on the continent itself. To mark the occasion, the excursion crew had placed flags along the hiking trail, and they were on hand to take photos.

There are no penguin rookeries in this area, but we did see a few of the little guys. We also learned that a group of penguins in the water is called a raft of penguins and a group of penguins on land is called a waddle of penguins or a tuxedo of penguins. We also learned that the Mandarin word for penguin translates as “business goose.” I almost died when I heard that!

While we were on land, a whale swam into the harbor and cruised around for a while. As a zodiac came zipping into the cove to pick up passengers, I heard Olivia over the radio, “Incoming zodiac, slow way down. There’s a whale right beside you.” A short time later, as we were in our zodiac going back to the ship, a whale surfaced directly in front of our boat. It seemed like it was just five feet in front of us. 

We got back to the ship just in time for a barbecue lunch on the top deck.

I ended my afternoon with a ride in the submarine. I’ll make a separate post for that.

All in all, it was quite a day!

This morning, our Expedition Leader, Olivia, woke us up with a ship-wide announcement that we were going to sail through the La Mer Passage. This was a beautiful way to start the day! Wow!

La Mer was our southernmost visit on this voyage. After traveling down the passage and then heading back out, we turned northeast towards Goudier Island in the small harbor of Port Lockroy.

The port was originally established as a whaling station and you can see remnants today – oversized rusting chains where whaling ships used to tie up and a whale skeleton on the beach.

This little harbor has three islands. The largest is Goudier Island which has a research station with five scientists and a bunch of penguins living on it. There are also two smaller islands with penguins all over the place. In addition, there are black and white corcoran birds which look a lot like penguins, but they can actually fly. It’s easy to confuse the two from a distance.

After its whaling past, today, Goudier Island is dedicated to research and history, and it has a small museum for those brave enough to venture here. But perhaps the most interesting thing, though, is that this is the southernmost post office in the world. And here’s where worlds collide.

Our cruise ship brought 5.9 metric tons of supplies from England down this little island. These supplies left the UK in September and traveled a round-about way across the world until it was loaded on our ship in Ushuaia on December 8th. The payload included food, toiletries, and other essentials, but most importantly, Christmas presents from family members to the scientists! 

As long as our ship was meeting up with the island, one of the Goudier scientists came on board to give a lecture, and she brought a mailbox with her so we could send postcards from Antarctica.

Chad and I took a zodiac cruise at the end of the day, 6 pm. Our guide zipped us around the islands. We saw lots of penguins, of course. What was interesting was seeing some Adelie penguins which aren’t usually found this far south or west, so our guide steer our little boat over to them and then radioed the other guides to let them know to motor over as well.

We also saw two weddell seals sunning themselves plus a large flock of black and white corcorans roosting on the rocks with some of their chicks.

Back on the boat, we met up with Jolie and Lucy for another leisurely dinner. I’m now sitting in the Explorers’ Lounge with a final glass of wine, still astounded at the view around me. I want to just sit here and watch the scenery pass by. I feel so lucky to witness this. But I know we have a hike in the morning, so I’ll head to bed and know that it will be another amazing day tomorrow.

Day 6 was a full day at Fournier Bay. The bay is known for glaciers, icebergs, whales and seals, but there is no beach to land. We took a zodiac cruise around the inner bay in the morning past impressive snow formations, and I kept waiting to hear the thunder boom of an iceberg breaking away from the glacier, and while it didn’t happen for us, other guests said they saw avalanches and calving glaciers. 

Our zodiac took us around the back side of False Island where we found a little rock cliff cove.

In the afternoon, we had a cruise on a special ops boat. We learned that this boat was designed for the Norwegian navy, hence the name. It can travel as fast as 40 knots (we only went 18 knots, and it seemed FAST.) The boat was also designed to be carried by helicopter and dropped into the sea and then zoom! Viking has designed this cruise ship experience to accommodate the special ops boats because it allows people with mobility issues and people in wheelchairs to be able to get off of the large ship and out onto the water. Awesome!

The special ops boat is also able to venture farther away from the main ship than the zodiacs, and on this trip, we zipped off to see a couple of huge icebergs. These icebergs blew my mind, easily twice as tall as our ship, so maybe 12-15 stories tall. Plus, the one looked like a giant monopoly house.

At the end of the day, our captain announce that we would sail through a special S-curve passage, which was amazing, and we ended up with a beautiful sunset. 

On Friday morning, we awoke to a calm, glassy sea. After the choppy, windy weather of the day before, this was a welcome site. As we were standing at our stateroom window, we saw penguins and a whale cruising alongside us.

As we were finishing breakfast, our Expedition Leader, Olivia, came on the intercom system and said, “Good morning. I’m sorry to disturb you, but there are whales feeding in the water off the bow of the ship.” Of course, everyone went running to have a look, some people still in their pajamas, and there were three humpback whales swimming back and forth, spouting, breeching and submerging. So cool!

There are several scientists on board the ship, and there are usually a couple of science lectures each day. This morning, I attended one given by the penguin specialists and learned all about penguins and the research these women were doing to monitor the size and health of penguin colonies in the area.

At noon, we arrived at Mikkelsen Harbour and dropped anchor for the day. Chad and I got booked into two excursions. Our first was a hike on the island. We were on the first round of zodiacs, and we spent an hour walking around. There were remains of a whale, a whaling ship, and an old Argentine research hut. We also saw Weddell seals, an elephant seal, and so many gentoo penguins.

We kind of rushed to get back to the ship because we had a back-to-back booking for kayaking. We bounded up to our cabin to shed some layers and then went back to the launch deck to don dry suits and neoprene booties. We felt very fortunate to get a time slot for kayaking.

Back in September, Viking opened up the sign-up list for all of the excursions. I booked us into hikes and zodiac cruises and special ops boat cruises, but by the time I got to the kayak reservations, they were all booked up.  Man, was I bummed.

Fast forward to our second day on the ship. Despite not having reservations, we attended the kayak orientation and passed the physical test and got on the wait list. The lead kayak guy, Ramy, showed us the wait list and said that it was very long, so he didn’t think we would be able to get a booking.

The next day, as we were standing on the bow and passing through the English Strait, Chad struck up a conversation with Ramy and chat-chatted about I don’t know what. At the end of the conversation, Ramy asked for our room number. Guess who had a surprise kayak booking show up on their calendar? Now, I don’t know if it’s because Chad made a connection with Ramy or because our very first excursion got canceled or some combination of the two. Who cares? We got to go kayaking in Antarctica.

The kayaks were anchored on the far side of the island, so we took a zodiac over there and slipped over the side of the zodiac and into the kayak seats. (This was why we had to pass a physical test.) There was a lot of ice floating around, so our guide pulled a piece out of the sea and explained some physics to us. 

The ice started as snow. As the snow becomes more and more compacted, it turns to ice. The air in the snow becomes compressed and squeezed under pressure. As a result, when the ice melts, it makes little popping sounds as the air explodes out of the frozen bubbles. Then we paddled into an ice field and sat there quietly, listening to the little pops. It was like listening to a bowl of Rice Krispies!

Then we took a slow paddle around the island. Having done the hike earlier, it was cool to see the island from a different perspective. At the end of the tour, we power-paddled through a big ice field and met the zodiac on the other side. We hauled/flopped ourselves into the zodiac and zipped back to the ship.

We spent the evening with Jolie and Lucy with a cocktail in the Explorers’ Lounge and then dinner in one of the restaurants. After a very stimulating day of beautiful scenery, hiking among the penguins, and paddling on the water, I was in bed at 8:30 and sacked out by 8:45. We passed an uneventful night as the ship sailed to our next destination.