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Drake & Southern Gateways · 51°40′S · 72°30′W

Cruises visiting Patagonia

Granite Spires • Chilean Fjords & Glacial Steppe

219 upcoming Antarctic expeditions with Patagonia on the route, from $10,830.

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Wildlife you can spot here

Penguins

Southern Rockhopper Penguin

A small, spiky-crested penguin found around the southern tip of South America and its outlying islands. Its tangled taxonomic history makes it a quietly interesting stop on any Southern Ocean itinerary.

Seals & Sea Lions

Southern Elephant Seal

The southern elephant seal is the largest of all pinnipeds, with bulls roughly twice the bulk of a walrus. Watching a beachful of them roar and shove over territory is one of the most physical wildlife spectacles the Southern Ocean offers.

Whales & Dolphins

Southern Right Whale

A stocky baleen whale with no dorsal fin and a head crusted in pale callosities, once hunted almost to extinction and now the whale most likely to breach or wave a fluke at passing ships. It favours the same cold, food-rich waters that expedition itineraries already follow.

Whales & Dolphins

Commerson's Dolphin

A small, sharply marked black-and-white dolphin found only around the tip of South America, often seen riding the bow wave in narrow channels. Its jacobita or panda-dolphin nickname comes from the bold two-tone pattern that make it hard to mistake for anything else.

Whales & Dolphins

Peale's Dolphin

A small, sturdy dolphin found only in the waters off southern South America, sometimes still called the black-chinned dolphin for the dark patch under its jaw. Watch for it riding bow waves as your ship threads the channels toward Antarctica.

Seals & Sea Lions

South American Sea Lion

Bulky, maned bulls and sleek females haul out together on beaches from the Falklands to the Beagle Channel. Watching a dominant male defend his patch of shoreline is one of the more entertaining wildlife spectacles of the region.

Albatrosses & Seabirds

Imperial Shag

A black-and-white cormorant with a startling ring of blue skin around each eye, nesting in dense colonies on bare coastal rock. Look for it wherever cliffs meet water, often perched stiff-winged like a heraldic emblem.

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