Tracy and her husband returned in January 2014 from a Cruise to the Antarctic Peninsula. Here she tells us about her trip and her experiences in booking with Swoop and our partners in Antarctica…
‘Well its hard to know where to start!! If I was scoring the trip out of 10 it would have to be an 11!!’
Wildlife Spotting
Lets start with the wildlife, and the words of Shane (the expedition leader):
“I have been taking trips to the Antarctic for 19 years and done approx. 150 trips to this continent and I have never had a day like this!!!
Shane was referring to the day we anchored in Wilhemena Bay. We were on our way to another landing but suddenly all around the boat and in the bay were dozens of Humpback whales and Minke whales! Shane made the decision to pull the landing and zodiac cruise instead. What a decision!
There followed the longest zodiac cruise of his history: 6 hours!! No one including the guides wanted to return to ship!! Apparently there were in excess of 50 Humpback whales and numerous Minke whales all feeding in the bay, including their young.
A couple of the humpbacks breached, sadly we only saw one from a distance but a couple of the zodiacs were very close and one guy got the most amazing pictures which I think he is going to sell to the cruise operator for marketing purposes!
The weather was incredible for a full 6 days on the continent and this day was no exception and temp of about 10c! The sun was shining and it was perfectly calm, so the very best conditions we could hope for whale watching!
Some whales surfaced right next to our zodiac and I mean right next to our zodiac. Another zodiac was rocked somewhat when it came up under it!! One humpback was very interested in the sea spirit and kept bringing his nose right out the water under the bow of the ship to check it out!!
Then the most incredible thing happened (are you bored yet!) the bridge spotted a pod of Orcas!! Our zodiac and another had just finally returned to ship but Shane got the guides to put the zodiacs straight back into the water, to our relief and off we zoomed to follow them!! As you know they dive for about 5 minutes and can come up anywhere!
Fortunately we had a young man on our boat with binoculars for eyes and he spotted them at 2 o clock! Off we raced and for about 2 precious minutes sailed along with them, some of them swam under our zodiac and one played with the bubbles from the engine before diving and leaving us finally. And there was a baby calf with them!
Two of the younger guides said it was the best day of their lives, and many of us were in tears with the sheer wonder of it all. Needless to say at recap Shane got a standing ovation… and he was in tears too!!
I am totally in love with penguins and we saw 3 species, Adelie, Chinstrap and Gentoo, would have loved to see a Macaroni Penguin but not many of them are on the Peninsula. We also saw numerous Weddell, Crabeater and Leopard seals and one young male elephant seal. And guess what, one Emperor Penguin! He was a long way from home and not a great specimen as he was moulting but great to see him nevertheless!!
We also saw a few dolphins, apparently there was a Sea Lion too but we did not see him. Lots of birds, Snow Petrals, Albatross etc.
Landings
We made 2 landings or zodiac cruises every day apart from the second to last day when the weather closed in a bit but we weren’t complaining! The last day was Deception Island and it was snowing which we actually enjoyed to see truer Antarctic weather.
We made it down part of the Antarctic Sound but the ice has been late leaving this year so one tiny disappointment was not quite making it into the Weddell sea but we did managed a zodiac cruise around the tabular icebergs which were amazing.
Scenery
The scenery was spectacular; I could go on and on….
The Vessel & Crew
The ‘Sea Spirit’ vessel was not actually our first choice, but the dates and itinerary were the best for us. We were not disappointed, the extra room was lovely on a longer expedition cruise and very comfortable. The amenities and food were superb and the service staff were lovely and worked very very hard. Everything was very well organised and nothing too much trouble.
The Expedition staff were very experienced and helpful and wanted you to have a great time and get the most from trip.
Lectures were of a high standard: perhaps not quite as good as the expedition crew we had on our Arctic tripa few ears ago, but very close, and Shane was equally superb as Laurie from the former trip. It was great having Falcon Scott and Jonathan Shackleton, relatives of the two great Antarctic explorers on board and we thoroughly enjoyed their lectures.
Recommendations for Future Visitors
It’s hard to give a recommendation for future visitors apart from just go!! I know our trip was probably exceptional and not every trip is or will be like that but its worth trying!!
I can 100% recommend the operator we used though, they were totally professional in every way and would definitely travel with them again…we are thinking about a Greenland trip.
Thanks again to you all for all your help in the beginning with choosing our trip it was invaluable and we did make the right decision. We heard that the Emperor Penguin trip only managed to make one landing by helicopter because of the weather so we are glad we did not go for than one!
