After a few days exploring the 'deep south', there are further shore
excursions on the northerly route along the Antarctic Peninsula. The ship is
small enough to navigate through the narrow Lemaire Channel, with glacial
walls towering high on both sides, leading to a jigsaw of jewel-like islands
that are home to huge penguin rookeries, Elephant seals and countless
seabirds. There are also whales: imagine a pair of Humpbacks, at least 30
tonnes of mammal, rising imperiously against a turquoise ice-wall viewed from
a Zodiac only metres away, and you have the essence of the Antarctic.