Author: Paul

Tales from the heroic era of polar exploration have inspired travellers to Antarctica for a century. The names of Captain Robert Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton remain talismans for many people planning their trips today.  The huts that these early explorers used as bases for their attempts to reach the South Pole still stand today, […]

Citizen science is becoming an increasingly popular addition to many Antarctic expedition cruises, but there’s often a lot of confusion about exactly what it entails. In this new Swoop Antarctica series we’re taking a deep dive into the subject to explore all the different citizen projects it’s currently possible to take part in while on […]

One of the best wildlife experiences I had when I visited South Georgia last year was also one of the most unexpected. I was standing in the tussac grass at Salisbury Plain, almost deafened by the metallic trumpeting of its enormous king penguin colony, when one of the guides told me to look up. As […]

Last November I was lucky enough to visit Elephant Island, that bleak mountainous outcrop at the farthest tip of the South Shetlands that points the way from the Antarctic Peninsula to South Georgia.  Elephant Island is forever famous as the location where the stranded men of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition sheltered while ‘the Boss’ […]

One of my favourite places in Grytviken in South Georgia is somewhere overlooked. Tucked into an anteroom of the Norwegian Church is the old whaling station’s forgotten library. After browsing the shelves, you can flick through 1950s registration books to discover which whalers were the most avid readers. It’s a gently moving experience: while nature […]

At the end of 2022 I was able to tick off one of my big bucket list destinations when I travelled south to join an expedition cruise sailing to South Georgia and Antarctica. While I packed up my warm clothes and checked my spare memory cards and batteries for my camera I was bubbling over […]

South Georgia is often described as the Serengeti of the Southern Ocean. It’s a title that speaks of the outsized attractions of this thin speck of an island, because when it comes to wildlife, South Georgia truly is the real deal. If you’ve ever considered the Galapagos Islands, the mountain gorillas of East Africa or […]

No figure towers over the history of polar exploration than that of Sir Ernest Shackleton. On polar expedition cruises, it’s a rare voyage there that doesn’t include a lecture about Shackleton’s life and the epic survival story of his Endurance expedition. It’s a story in which South Georgia plays a central role, and many visitors […]