Cruise Chilean Fjords And Antarctica

Many voyages stop in Chile’s City at the End of The World. This wind-whipped, fractured land of islands, glacial fjords and mountains drops away toward Antarctica and offers a warm welcome and refuge. Drink it all in as Punta Arenas comes ahead of—and following—epic adventures and expeditions south across the Drake Passage. This is the city that welcomed both Captain Scott in 1904 and the rescued Ernest Shackleton and his Endurance crew in 1916.

Far from its origins as a sheep exporting hub, modern-day Puerto Natales is a colorful and vibrant town that serves as the jumping-off point for the world-famous Torres del Paine National Park. The park, which lies two hours to the north, has some of the most postcard-perfect scenery imaginable and draws tourists from all over the globe. The must-see park—which is a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve—also provides ample wildlife spotting opportunities with flocks of guanacos, a relative of the llama, grazing the roadside hills, Andean condors soaring in the heavens and if your luck is really in, perhaps even a glimpse of a puma, for Torres del Paine is considered one of the best places in South America to spot this reclusive cat.

No two words conjure up more fear to sailors than Cape Horn. With its reputation of ferocious storms and mountainous seas, it was a place where a seafarer garnered respect for bravery against the odds. That is if he lived to tell the tale. The Cape itself is the rugged insular tip of South America that projects into the storm-swept Drake Passage. The Dutch sailor Willem Schouten and merchant Jacob Le Maire, both from the town of Hoorn (hence Cape Horn), put it on the map in 1616 when attempting to circumvent the trade monopoly exercised by the Dutch East India Company over the Straits of Magellan.

Lying close to the northwestern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, separated by the Bransfield Strait, the South Shetlands fall under the jurisdiction of the Antarctic Treaty, suspending claims on their sovereignty. Several countries maintain research bases here, and with plump elephant seals, and crowds of gentoo, chinstrap and Adélie penguins also calling the islands home, it can even feel a little crowded at times. King George Island, where passengers on our Antarctica Fly Cruise sailings will embark and disembark, is the largest and most hospitable island, hosting the majority of the research stations—some of which are populated all year round by tiny, hardy crews. Don’t be fooled though, these islands offer extraordinary adventure in one of the most remote locations on earth.

Enter the mighty Panama Canal, one of history’s most ambitious and spectacular stretches of waterway. One of life’s bucket list musts, a Panama Canal crossing turns you from tourist to traveler. Connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and slicing through the heart of a continent, the canal is a staggering engineering triumph, eliminating the need to traverse the treacherous waters of South America and Cape Horn. Sail one of the world’s great canals to appreciate the true scale of this achievement, as your ship maneuvers between its vast, gushing locks and huge lakes.

English Narrows refers to a narrow passage at the southern end of the Messier Channel in Chile’s Region XI, Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. The region is Chile’s least populated and a few miles south of English Narrows is Puerto Eden, the only settlement along the entire Chilean Inside Passage. With Wellington Island to the west and surrounded by Chile’s largest national park, Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, the narrow passage is at times 590 ft (180 m) wide, while the entire length is given as 11.2 mi (18 km). Low-lying islands and steep mountains are seen on both sides and the Magellanic subpolar forest with its evergreen trees of the genus Nothofagus has taken hold where possible.