Part II · 2023

Antarctica The Frozen South

Cross the Drake Back to Part Two
Antarctica · March 2023

The road becomes an ocean.

Ushuaia disappears behind the ship and the journey enters the Drake Passage, where lectures, albatrosses, sea legs and the infamous Drake Shake build towards the first sight of ice-covered land.

Beyond the Drake lies the Antarctic Peninsula: Zodiac landings, penguin colonies, leopard seals, humpbacks, blue ice and narrow channels that make the entire expedition feel almost unreal. Then the ship turns north and the frozen continent begins to recede.

Explore the expedition View the complete eBook
3Expedition stages
5thContinent reached
60°SAntarctic threshold
1Little Red Ship
Before the expedition

Understanding Antarctica.

Explore the land, deep history, geology, ice, climate, ecology, wildlife and explorers that shaped the world at the frozen end of the map.

Land

Discover the continent’s immense scale, mountain ranges, polar deserts, islands and the physical geography hidden beneath the ice.

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History

Trace the sightings, claims, scientific ambitions and international agreements that transformed an unknown south into a shared continent.

Read History

Geology

Ancient rocks, active volcanoes and tectonic history reveal a continent once joined to warmer lands before drifting south.

Read Geology

Glaciology

Ice sheets, shelves, glaciers, sea ice and frozen climate records explain why Antarctica matters far beyond the polar regions.

Read Glaciology

Climate

Extreme cold, fierce katabatic winds, long polar seasons and a changing atmosphere define Earth’s harshest climate.

Read Climate

Ecology

A highly connected marine ecosystem, driven by krill and seasonal productivity, supports life across the Southern Ocean.

Read Ecology

Wildlife

Penguins, seabirds, seals and whales survive through extraordinary adaptations to cold, distance and seasonal abundance.

Read Wildlife

Explorers

Cook, de Gerlache, Charcot, Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton embody ambition, endurance, tragedy and survival in the frozen south.

Read Explorers
The live expedition journal

Across, ashore and back again.

The expedition runs south across the Drake, along the Antarctic Peninsula and back north again, with each stage keeping its journal entries in chronological order.

II.II.II
Expedition days · Continental stage

Antarctic Peninsula

Landfall among the South Shetlands begins a succession of Zodiac cruises, penguin colonies, glaciers, whales, leopard seals and the mirror-like channels of the Peninsula.

Open journal entries01
After
Closing reflection

After Antarctica

The ship eventually turns north, but the scale, silence and strange unreality of Antarctica do not recede with the ice. The expedition ends back in Ushuaia with the journey changed by a continent that never quite felt real.

Read the reflection
After
Closing reflection

After Antarctica

The ship eventually turns north, but the scale, silence and strange unreality of Antarctica do not recede with the ice. The expedition ends back in Ushuaia with the journey changed by a continent that never quite felt real.

Read the reflection
An Antarctic expedition is the worst way to have the best time of your life!
Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Member of Scott’s 1910–1913 expedition
What Antarctica becomes

A world beyond proportion.

The frozen south transforms distance, wilderness and gratitude into something that is almost impossible to carry back unchanged.

Awe

Glacial walls, blue ice and mountains rising from the sea repeatedly overwhelm the ability to describe what is happening in front of you.

Fragility

Every landing reveals an ecosystem built on narrow margins, where changing ice and human pressure can reverberate through an entire food web.

Perspective

At the far end of the map, ordinary worries become very small and simply being present feels like an extraordinary, undeserved privilege.

Reflections of a Roving Doctor complete collection artwork
The complete gap-year journal

The farthest chapter of the journey.

Continue through Patagonia, Chile and the final road home in the complete three-part Reflections of a Roving Doctor collection.

View the complete eBook Return to Part Two

The frozen dream recedes.

The ship returns to Ushuaia, but the journey through Argentina is not over. The next chapter heads back into Patagonia for Bariloche, El Chaltén and El Calafate.

Continue with Argentina Part II.
Read Argentina Part II