About Antarctica

• Antarctica up close
• Wildlife
• Choose your expedition
• Quick facts
• The explorers
• Antarctic Treaty

Antarctica Up Close

The Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands are less than two days’ sailing from mainland South America and Ushuaia, the southernmost town in Argentina. The Peninsula has relatively mild weather conditions with temperatures as high as 15 degrees Celsius. This mild climate leads to a proliferation of wildlife and, in ‘summer’, endless twilight.

Wildlife

Antarctica offers fantastic possibilities for viewing the following, as well as many others:

• Whales: Humpback, Minke, Orca
• Seals: Elephant, Fur, Weddell, Crab Eater
• Penguins: King, Chinstrap, Gentoo, Emperor, Rockhopper, Magellanic, Macaroni & Adelie
• Other Birdlife: Skua, Petrel, Albatross

Choose your Expedition

There are 3 main itineraries: Antarctic Explorer (10 nights); the Antarctic Circle Quest (12 nights); and Antarctica, the Falklands and South Georgia (16-19 nights).
Click here to view a larger version of the map

Falkland Islands: these remote islands are a natural haven for wildlife that thrives in the milder weather just north of the Antarctic.

South Georgia: the ultimate wildlife experience; hundreds of thousands of colourful king penguins blanket the beach. Elephant and fur seals are found in mind boggling numbers and albatross soar overhead.

Quick Facts

• Geographic Size: 14,000,000 sq. kilometres
• Contains nearly 70% of the world’s fresh water
• Has the highest average elevation of all continents, around 2,250 metres (mainly due to the thick layer of ice)

The Explorers

• Cook, 1770-1775 – circumnavigated Antarctica and crossed the Antarctic Circle three times.
• Palmer and Powell, 1820 – mapped and explored the South Shetland Islands and the South Orkney Islands.
• Bellingshausen, 1819-1821 – second man to circumnavigate Antarctica.
• Weddell, 1820-1824 – reached a new record south, to later have the Weddell Sea named after him.
• Biscoe, 1830-1832 – explored the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula
• D’Urville, 1837- 1840 – the first to sail to the continent from Europe.
• Wilkes, 1838-1841 – the first investigator to insist Antarctica was a continent.
• Ross, 1839-1843 – discovered an enormous cliff of ice, with walls up to 60 metres above the sea, later called the Ross Ice Shelf
• De Gerlache, 1897 – ship became imprisoned in the ice, the first winter humans spent in Antarctica.
• Scott’s Discovery Expedition, 1901
• Shackleton’s Nimrod Expedition, 1908-1909 – managed to reach a point within 180 kms of the pole.
• Amundsen, 1910 – reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911
• Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition, 1910 – reached the South Pole on January 17, 1912, to find Amundsen had beaten them by 33 days.
• Shackelton’s Endurance Expedition, 1914 – after their boat sank, Shackleton and his men lived on the floating pack-ice for 5 months, but not one soul was lost.

Antarctic Treaty

With the signing of the Protocol of Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty it is hoped that Antarctica will remain a wonder for those who set foot there, a dream for those who have yet to venture there and a source of inspiration and hope for humans. The Antarctic Treaty came into force on 23 June 1961 after ratification by the twelve countries then active in Antarctic science.