How to Plan Your Polar Cruise – Wild Junket Adventure Travel Blog

Final Current on December 8, 2022 by Nellie Huang

“And I explain to you, if you have the need for information and the electric power to give it bodily expression, go out and examine.” So claimed Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who accompanied Captain Scott on his doomed expedition to Antarctica and famously documented their experiences in his memoir The Worst Journey in the Environment.

Thankfully, discovering the polar areas no longer has to entail these types of a feat of stamina. Today, they can be explored in harmless, compact-scale expedition vessels with specialist guiding.

Even if expedition disorders these days are substantially extra cozy than those experienced by the initially hardy polar explorers, checking out the poles still deserves the title of ‘trip of a lifetime’.

To working experience the Arctic or Antarctic is to working experience utter remoteness. It is about witnessing some of the very last undisturbed locations of purely natural natural beauty on earth – in advance of they disappear. It’s about becoming awed by a feeling of scale, drawing together with great icy mountainous peaks and glaciers and staying dwarfed by their shadow. It is about looking at diverse species, this sort of as whales and walruses, in their all-natural habitats and marvelling that these apparently stark sites are such biodiverse environments. 

Where by Do You Go on a Polar Cruise?

Commence to strategy your polar cruise by determining which itinerary you’d like. There are generally a several choices to pick out from in terms of itinerary.

Most Arctic cruises depart from Spitsbergen in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. The basic route is to circumnavigate the archipelago, cruising into its fjords and sailing across ice fields. You will also get to go on land and hike on its tundra fields and even climb up glaciers.

Antarctica cruises typically depart from the southern portion of Argentina. Most cruises visit the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, cruising earlier icebergs that are even bigger than structures, zipping by pods of whales and seals, browsing whaling stations and viewing hundreds of penguins on land. Some cruises also take a look at the sub-Antarctic Falkland Islands and South Georgia, property to some of the major Emperor Penguin populations in the environment.

What to Anticipate: Daily Everyday living on a Polar Cruise

Whether or not you are on an expedition cruise in the Arctic or Antarctica, working day-to-working day daily life normally takes a related sample.

Temperature and ice problems allowing, the crew will aim to get you off the ship and out on zodiacs (motorised dinghies) at the very least 2 times a working day. This could include wildlife-spotting, browsing a hanging viewpoint or ice development, exploring a historical web page (these kinds of as analysis stations or previous whaling huts), or even venturing ashore.

There are selections for more adventurous pursuits, these types of as kayaking, and in Antarctica, diving or tenting on the ice. (The polar bear population in the Arctic can make it unsafe to camp on land.)

But the polar regions are also about stillness, and time put in thinking about these otherworldly landscapes. Ice, you are going to appear to realise, is seldom white: it can often be many hues of blue – turquoise, cerulean – or even greenish.

All through sea days and some evenings there are lectures by expedition guides, who are all specialists in their field – whether or not it be glaciology, geology, maritime biology or polar heritage: polar cruising is a true mastering experience.

On some expeditions, there’s even the possibility to consider component in genuine-life science experiments, these kinds of as collecting water samples for checking amounts of plankton, or photographically documenting distinct whale flukes.

When to Go to the Polar Regions

Antarctic cruises depart in the northern hemisphere’s winter to examine the Antarctic Peninsula during the southern hemisphere’s summertime. Chilly-climate garments with lots of levels is certainly important for each environments, even though it is not rather as chilly as you could hope – until you take component in a polar plunge, of course…

Wildlife in the Polar Locations

Wildlife viewing is a spotlight of all polar cruises. A single of our favored Antarctic times was stumbling throughout a lazing Weddell seal just as the clouds parted. The seal seemed to recognize the sudden split in the clouds as substantially as we did, and he basked in the sun as we crept previous, whispering our shock at seeing him so unfazed by our proximity.

As well as recognizing a wide variety of seals at either pole, there is a good probability of looking at whales as they feed or come to look into the moored ships, offering you a possibility to notice actions this kind of as breaching and spyhopping (when whales increase up vertically and pop their heads out of the drinking water). 

The species of whales you will see change dependent on place. The Arctic is property to the shy beluga whale with its unique white colouration, whilst humpback and minke whales can be noticed at either pole. It’s wondrous to see whales surfacing in close proximity to your zodiac, but this is also mother nature red in tooth and claw: you may possibly glimpse big petrels or glaucous gulls swooping down to pick off unguarded penguin or guillemot chicks.

Your daily schedule may improve easily and unpredictability, while this can add to the exhilaration. It’s not uncommon for supper to be interrupted for the reason that a pod of whales have designed a unexpected appearance portside, or for planned things to do to be disrupted by unpredictable weather conditions.

In the Arctic, any sighting of a bear will be referred to as out around the tannoy, so keep your coat and digital camera with you at all situations. In Antarctica, you are allowed to roam independently for limited distances, but all over again, you will require to head promptly back to the zodiac need to poor weather appear in.

Penguins vs Polar Bears 

Selecting your polar cruise is a concern of priorities. Vacation time could be one particular (see beneath). But that aside, it arrives down to wildlife. Which creatures are you most keen to see?

Big colonies of penguins are discovered in Antarctica, with scientists apparently staying equipped to find colonies from place, even though the Arctic has much larger mammals – you could see herds of reindeer, and tusked walruses lurching throughout the ice floes. And then there’s the polar bear. All are interesting in their personal strategies.

In Antarctica, you are likely to see Gentoo, Adélie and Chinstrap penguins, and whilst they can look ungainly and comical as they waddle overland (appear out for their energy-successful slides downhill on their stomachs), they are sleek in the drinking water as they shoot as a result of shoals of krill, creating a waterproofing and friction-lowering oil that spreads in excess of their feathers. Their main predator is the fearsome leopard seal and you may place one particular snoozing on an ice floe in between looking (but maintain your length – their warning growls defend their individual house).

The sheer remoteness of Antarctica implies that penguins have no land predators, and so they sense unthreatened by human presence. Interaction with wildlife is forbidden below Antarctic treaty, but never be stunned if a number of penguins flout that rule and occur and examine you.

Polar bears are far more elusive, and dealing with extinction. As international warming brings about sea ice to soften earlier and reform afterwards, polar bears’ searching time is minimized. They are solitary animals, who hunt and reside by yourself when they have been weaned from their moms, with the males getting specially intense. Sightings are by no means 100% certain and are solely unpredictable – but this only makes the prospect extra thrilling.

Svalbard is house to 3,000 polar bears and the sight of a white bear is memorable. You may well see a single foraging on a shoreline, coming to sniff a moored boat, swimming amid ice floes or crashing via pack ice with its front legs.

Acquiring There

For Antarctica, acquiring there is all aspect of the entertaining – a flight to Buenos Aires and then on to Ushuaia, the world’s most southerly metropolis, and the departure issue for crossing Drake’s Passage to the suggestion of the Antarctic Peninsula. Crossings are notoriously tough, and you may possibly uncover by yourself gaping at 15 to 20 metre-higher waves crashing about the ship, so it is a exam of your sea legs. On the other hand, there is the selection to fly to be a part of your cruise ship at the South Shetland Islands if you wish to stay clear of this specific ceremony of passage.

By contrast, journeying to the Arctic is much more rapidly and can commonly be attained in the exact same working day, flying to Longyearbyen, just one of the world’s most northerly settlements situated in the northern reaches of Norway. Surroundings-wise, you can assume additional absolutely free drifting icebergs in Antarctica, whilst cruising in the Arctic usually consists of progressing by way of pack ice to get to the day’s destinations and a lot more stunning landscapes, these types of as the sculpted ice of the Sparreneset headland. 

Ships that direct expeditions to Antarctica all through the northern hemisphere’s winter usually sail up to Spitsbergen for the Arctic summer. A person of our present favourite vessels is the MS Expedition. Carrying 132 passengers, the ship has an open-air panoramic observation deck and comfy interiors.

We recommend vessels that have much less than 200 travellers, as they are equipped to offer a bigger number of trips on the zodiacs. But cruising in the polar areas is genuinely about the good quality of the guiding and we have been amazed by the expedition leaders on MS Expedition. All are polar travel veterans and stay and breathe their specialisms.

Polar Packing Suggestions

Some cruises present expedition jackets, but you should really also pack thermals, water-resistant trousers, and at minimum two pairs of gloves (swap them more than though one pair is drying out). 

Finally – and surprisingly – do not undervalue the have to have for polarised sunglasses and sun product: the ozone layer is thinnest at the poles, and the sun’s glare throughout miles and miles of brilliant whiteness can be blinding. The slightest movement, no matter if a tickle of wind or the slow rumble of the boat’s motor, blurs the image, like the light wash of a brush about a fragile watercolour painting.