Falklands & South Georgia · 58°30′S · 63°00′W
Rite of Passage • Albatross Alley
867 upcoming Antarctic expeditions with Drake Passage on the route, from $5,995.
Antarctic Peninsula
Mar 17, 2029 – Mar 28, 2029 · 12 days
Antarctic Peninsula
Mar 18, 2029 – Mar 29, 2029 · 12 days
Falkland Islands
Mar 27, 2029 – Apr 12, 2029 · 19 days
Whales & Dolphins
A 14–17 metre baleen whale known for breaching and long pectoral fins, often seen feeding on krill in loose groups along the ice edge.
Whales & Dolphins
Black and white apex predator instantly recognizable by its pale eye patches, the orca is the largest of the dolphins and one of the ocean's most capable hunters. Sightings often involve a tight-knit family pod working the ice edge together.
Albatrosses & Seabirds
The snowy albatross, better known as the wandering albatross, has the widest wingspan of any living bird alive today. Watch for it riding the wind for hours behind the ship without a single wingbeat.
Whales & Dolphins
The Antarctic minke is a small, fast-moving rorqual, the most abundant baleen whale on Earth, though singles and pairs still take some looking to spot. It surfaces briefly among the pack ice, more often glimpsed than watched.
Albatrosses & Seabirds
A large seabird of the albatross family, the black-browed albatross is the most widespread and common of all albatrosses. Its dark eye-stripe makes it one of the easiest albatrosses to pick out from a rolling deck.
Albatrosses & Seabirds
A small, sooty-grey albatross of the genus Phoebetria, first described from a specimen collected south of the Cape of Good Hope in 1785. Watch for its slow, buoyant glide along cliff faces and in the wake of ships crossing the Southern Ocean.
Albatrosses & Seabirds
A large seabird of the southern oceans, also called the Antarctic giant petrel, giant fulmar or simply the stinker. Its range overlaps broadly with the near-identical northern giant petrel, the two told apart chiefly by the colour of the bill-tip.
Whales & Dolphins
The fin whale is the second-longest animal on Earth after the blue whale, reaching up to 27 metres. Its long, slender, countershaded body is most often seen slicing through open water rather than breaching.
Whales & Dolphins
The sei whale is the third-largest rorqual after the blue and fin whale, and one of the fastest cetaceans afloat, capable of short bursts near 50 km/h. It favours deep offshore water, so a sighting on the crossing south is a genuine bonus rather than a certainty.
Whales & Dolphins
The sperm whale is the largest toothed predator on Earth, hunting giant squid at depths few other mammals reach. Its blunt, box-shaped head holds the largest brain of any animal.
Whales & Dolphins
A small, fast-moving dolphin of the open Southern Ocean, most often glimpsed as a flash of black and white alongside the ship's bow. It has a circumpolar range but is best known to travellers for its habit of appearing mid-crossing, far from any coast.
Albatrosses & Seabirds
The Antarctic prion is the largest of the prions, a group of small Southern Ocean petrels sometimes called dove prions. Watch for loose flocks wheeling low over the swell as your ship crosses open water between landings.
Albatrosses & Seabirds
The pintado petrel, better known as the Cape petrel, is one of the most abundant seabirds of the Southern Ocean, with a population estimated at around two million. Travellers usually meet it long before they see land, tracking ships across open water.
Albatrosses & Seabirds
A small, sooty-black seabird that flits and patters over the wake like it's walking on water. Named for ornithologist Alexander Wilson, it's reckoned among the most numerous bird species on Earth.
Albatrosses & Seabirds
A large mollymawk with an ashy-grey head, throat and neck, ranging further south into the Southern Ocean than any other albatross of its kind. Look for it wheeling low over the wake in open water far from any coastline.
