Beyond the Polar Circle with Andrew Daddo | PONANT

This is my final time on the ice. Too quickly we've reached our last day and, to be honest, I'm surprised at the effect this cruise to the Antarctic has had on me. The brilliance of the icebergs and snow-covered mountains, the sheer joy of so many penguins, the whales and seals, and the light and silence like you've only imagined, interrupted by true nature. It's like some kind of magic, an utterly overwhelming experience that does take your breath away. When I stepped aboard Laboriel a little over two weeks ago, I had an inkling of what was coming, but I was wrong. Antarctica is surely beyond the imagination of those who've not seen it. It is a dream, and it's a dream that came true. I'm on the precipice of one of life's great adventures and it raises the old question, what is better, the journey or the destination? Both of which promise to astound and delight and most definitely challenge. You see, I'm headed for the Antarctic, leaving Ushuaia. This is the last big city at the bottom of the world and I know it's not the stuff of Shackleton aboard the Endurance, but it's not meant to be. It's meant to be life-changing and it will be because everybody says it. I'm just busting to find out how. Join me on one of the world's greatest high seas adventures, cruising in luxury in true French style. We're heading south, deep south, exploring the white continent, Antarctica, a magical place teeming with incredible wildlife. This is the earth's largest, greatest and most fragile wilderness. This is a bucket list odyssey to excite all the senses. I invite you to join me as we journey beyond the polar circle. With Ushuaia shrinking behind us, it's down the infamous Beagle Channel and on to the Southern Ocean. To fully appreciate the wonders of the Antarctic, we are going all out. 16 nights at sea, 3,500 nautical miles, northeast to the Falkland Islands in South Georgia, before heading south to the South Shetland Islands as we make our way to the Antarctic Peninsula. And finally, weather and ice permitting, we'll cross the polar circle and officially enter Antarctica. No guarantees, of course, but then that's all part of the adventure. Florence Kalpa is our expedition leader. By her own definition, she is both adventurer and explorer. Surely this is her happy place. So the first place we go to is the Falkland Islands, a place that is not so often visited. So there's over 700 tiny islands with all this wildlife, penguins, albatrosses. As this is an expedition cruise, if there's a chance to get ashore, it's taken. Whenever we set anchor, the ship drops the fleet of zodiacs and the naturalists make sure all is safe before setting out for adventure. This is one thing that separates Ponnett's expedition cruises from the rest of the crowd. It's a two-day sail northeast of Ushuaia to the Falkland Islands. A remote and rugged South Atlantic archipelago, it's home to windswept sheep farms, fishes and, for us, abundant birdlife. This first stop is Grave Cove and our first sighting of Gentoo penguins in the wild. I was sort of pre-warned that the penguins are quite funny. They are funny creatures. We then walk across this rugged island to a beach. I was mesmerised at the bountiful wildlife. We saw a pod of hourglass dolphins making it two firsts in the one morning. A short trip to another landfall, West Point. So many ports of call. Just loving it. Welcome to West Point. A sunny, sunny West Point. Our expedition leader, Florence, is always first to greet us and always with a smile. Each day she briefs us with terrific facts on each and every adventure. So this is West Point. The ship is moored just outside this cove and it's a 2km walk to a colony of albatross. Intelligently, I swapped from the lighter jacket to the heavy one. Sun's come out. Quite hot. It's farming land. Beautiful yet unforgiving and definitely rugged. You can't help but notice the wind. This is like just a living sculpture and it's calm today but you can just imagine what it would be like. The rolling walk is a good chance to stretch the legs with the promise of something both unique and stunning. It's always nice when promises are kept. Across the bluff, on the edge of a sea cliff, a colony of black-browed albatross. This hatchery is huge. The harder and further you look, the more you find. Including a few interlopers like the aptly named rockhopper penguins. Aren't they just adorable? I'm not sure many of us have seen a show quite like this. The albatross spend most of their 50-year lives gliding the winds, only coming to earth to breed. And this tiny speck in the South Atlantic happens to be one of their favourite nurseries. This is the highest sea cliff in the Falkland Islands. The adult albatross are huge birds. They swoop into their chicks who cry out constantly. The scene was mesmerising. Alas, home videos and a headful of memories will have to suffice. Let me try and put this ship, Laborial, into perspective. Imagine being rich. Not just rich, but tycoon rich, like my dad left me a media empire kind of rich. You know the type. Of course, you'd have your own private mega-yacht. And that yacht would look and feel a lot like this. Ponant's Laborial is 11,000 tonnes and 142 metres of luxury, all wrapped up in a stunning new environmentally friendly design. Isn't it funny how it feels like there's nothing happening, then all of a sudden it all happens together? This is Shag Rocks. Quite famous for just being in the middle of nowhere. 240km from South Georgia. Discovered, I don't know, 250 years ago by a Spanish... I was going to say pirate, but he wasn't. He was a sailor called Shag. No, named after the shag birds. And there's been whales all around us for the last 15 minutes. And then I saw a seal swim by. Day six and it's another stunner. Snow-capped mountains crowd the horizon, then a seal comes in right under my balcony. The scene is most definitely set. The view is excitingly different to anything we've seen. As are the sounds. It's penguins. Not tens or thousands, but hundreds of thousands of them. King penguins, to be sure. This is South Georgia. The zodiacs have dropped in, conditions assessed, then travellers are sent off. It's a roster system, with everyone getting ample time on shore. And the idea is really simple. Less people, more nature. So everyone's a winner. It seems ridiculous to call something a highlight before you've actually seen it. But I fully expect South Georgia to be a major highlight. And there's... Oh, there's seals too. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to Salisbury. Welcome to Salisbury Plain. Enjoy the penguins, enjoy the fur seals. Let them approach you. I hope you guys appreciate how lucky we are to be here. It's really an incredible place that we don't get to visit often. Our guides instruct us to stay five metres away from the wildlife. The problem is the wildlife doesn't always obey the same rules. From an albatross nursery to what feels like the Garden of Eden, Salisbury Plain is a wildlife wonderland. And if you've seen Happy Feet, you'll have an inkling of what this place looks like. They're like puppies. It's like you haven't got my daughters here. Seriously, how do you choose between the baby seals and the king penguins? Obviously, you don't. So as much as I want to humanise the penguins and the fur seals, especially the cubs who are like little puppies, and so they're standing around in groups just chatting and talking about each other. Someone's had too much fish. The sounds that you hear are actually parents looking for offspring, for food and for safety. And some gossip as well, surely. Surely they're going, have you seen Margaret? Someone found a good bit of krill today, didn't they? See, he looks like an old man. He's got a hairy chest and, you know, he's not. That's the baby one. G'day, mate. I'm truly astounded at how many penguins this coastline can hold. Like the beach at Salisbury Plain, a three-day itinerary in South Georgia is absolutely packed. Fortuna Bay, St Andrew's Bay, Britvicken, Cooper Bay and finally, Drygowski Fjord. If Salisbury Plain was mostly about the king penguin, Fortuna Bay is a seal lover's paradise, specifically the pups. Looking at them now, it's hard to imagine, but the fur seals were almost hunted out of existence. There are days now when it's hard to find a spot to land given the numbers. This is one of nature's great rebound stories and a very good sign. What's happening here with these, with the seals? It's obviously, it's a colony. Yeah, so basically, it's almost like a seal nursery where we are now. So this island and all around South Georgia is a really important breeding ground for the Antarctic fur seal. These guys. So it's the biggest population in the world. And this time of year, as you can see, the pups are here. They're funny, aren't they? They're so funny. And their mums are out feeding. So they're just causing trouble, really. Chasing the ducks. Chasing off. Watch out, it's going to get you. Hi, just excuse me for a photo opportunity. G'day, mate. So you can see if you step backwards, that's what they like. They like to chase you. What are the chances of us seeing a white one, an albino? Exciting. Slim, but exciting. Yeah. So about one in a thousand are not albino, though. They're blonde. So it's basically, yeah. So they're not albino. If you get close enough, you'll see they've got normal eyes. They just basically got blonde hair. So they're leucistic is the technical term. Leucistic? Yeah, leucistic. You're a leucistic seal. Challenge accepted. One eye out for a leucistic seal. One eye on what's in front of me. It's hard to tell because some of the older ones have white on them. But there is a white one. There's a one in 1,000 shot right there. And there's the cutest. Oh my god. Hi. How are you? Good day. Where's mum? Getting some din-dins? Yeah, she'll be back soon. As for the leucistic seal, it's a case of plain, old-fashioned good luck. Inquisitive, gorgeous, cute. Every moment, a shutterbug's blessing. Day seven. We're heading to St Andrew's Bay, a short sail southeast from Fortuna Bay. Oh, sunshine. This is home to the largest king penguin colony in South Georgia. It gets better. Access isn't always possible and this stream is the main culprit. For often, it's running much faster and it's too difficult to cross. Today, with a little help, there's no issue at all. Well, not for us anyway. The king penguins loitering by the river are there for fresh water. They wouldn't have eaten for up to two to three weeks because they're molting and they can't swim when they lose their feathers because they need them for insulation. Luckily, their layer of fat provides energy until the molting season is over. It's a festival to be sure. Fur seals, king penguins, it's a place to find your inner kid and set it free. You see the seal in the middle of the thing? Oh, you bugger. Well, that's enough horseplay. I now have to reach the top of the hill. There's something slightly strange about this particular spot and it's that there's no king penguins. They've been everywhere all the time, which makes me think this is the calm before the storm. Oh, my God. I'm astounded to think this isn't the largest king penguin colony in the entire world. It's the second largest. But what a privilege it is to witness this sight. That is more than 100,000 pairs, so it's quite a lot. Yeah, why here? Why in South Georgia? Because they don't have, let's say, a lot of space to breed. All these king penguins, they live in sub-Antarctic islands because they feed, they get their food from the Southern Ocean, so they need a place for breeding. It's such a privilege to be surrounded by all these animals in peace and it's amazing. Yeah, it's beautiful. You can't find that in Africa, but in Africa, if you go out of your car, you have a lion trying to kill you, you know? There is ample time to take the wonder of it all in before we stroll back down to shore. I'm almost certain I'll never witness sheer numbers of wildlife like this again. This is the stunning King Edward Cove. The water is like something you'd imagine on a beautiful tropical island. At the end of the cove, you'll find an abandoned whaling station. More seals. Another seal paradise, though these pups are a little bigger, with their own interesting table manners. A bit of living history here and a lot of seals. This is the old whaling station of Gritvicken. It all began here in 1904. The first year, they slaughtered 195 whales and it finished in the mid-1960s, not because they said whaling's bad and it's not something we should be doing, but because they literally ran out of whales and it was no longer commercially viable. So they just packed up, as you can see, and they left. And they left it like this. It is as close as you'll get to a true ghost town. Effectively snap frozen the moment the station was abandoned in December 1966. It is spectacular and definitely sets the imagination running. The rusted relics of the whaling industry are literally everywhere, from complete ships to tenders to the giant rusting whale oil tanks. Thankfully, this is an industry that's been left behind. I mean, this is, this whole place is amazing. It's literally like, and they did, literally just left. I mean, this is a whale bone and they're dotted all along the shoreline. So you'd see different parts of the anatomy and the size and the scale and the boats, the anchors. It's just, it's like a little spooky, but then quite fantastic as well. A small wooden church was built especially for the whalers who, for most accounts, didn't care for it. Kristin Locken, their only pastor, left in 1914. But there was a day in 1922 when the people did come, from everywhere. It was for the final farewell of one of the true heroes of the Antarctic, explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. His is one of the great survival stories of all time. It was from Gritvicken that Shackleton organised the rescue of 28 of his men from Elephant Island on the edges of Antarctica's South Shetland Islands. Shackleton and five others sailed the Southern Ocean to South Georgia in a 22 and a half foot lifeboat, 1300 kilometres, 16 days. Dying from a heart attack in 1922 at the beginning of another Antarctic expedition, his wife knew his heart lay in South Georgia. 64 souls are buried in Gritvicken Cemetery. They're all oriented to the east except for this one. And this is Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton. And his head is oriented to the south because that's what he loved. And that's actually why he's buried here. And it's a great memorial to one of the great men of the area and maybe one of the great men of the world. And he lived by his motto that difficulties are just things to be overcome. And he certainly did that. Near the southern tip of South Georgia, just to the north of Cape Disappointment, is Dragowski Fjord. It is a mile-wide knockout. Surely this gives a sense of what's to come as we work our way along the Antarctic Peninsula. The vista, one of soaring mountains amongst the glaciers, has the ship excited. A visual knockout extending deep into South Georgia's interior, it is impossible to describe the scale of what we're seeing and the colours. Juxtaposed against the slabs of rock is a harbour that beggars belief. Chunks of glacial cast-off float by as the shutters and the phones try to capture the essence of the majesty before us. Dragowski Fjord is truly awe-inspiring. And we all know it. South Georgia had one final surprise. A massive iceberg that literally dwarfed us. Over a kilometre long. It was like the ice wall from Game of Thrones. Winter was definitely coming. Not to be outdone, southern right whales frolic near the ship as seabirds fought for their share of the krill. Again and again and again. Seriously, this just gets better. Day nine, we awoke to something of a welcome party. Or maybe it was more like sentinels giving us an official welcome to Antarctic waters. Hey, this is pretty great. I was just having breakfast, a croissant, because everything's French. And I've looked outside. I thought, is it raining? It's snowing. But it's getting, like, seriously Antarctic now. This is great. Watching the zodiacs drop is a sure sign we're headed for shore. A highlight for everyone aboard. Half Moon Island is a harsh yet quite beautiful chance to stretch the legs. It's better than telly. There's two seals here just practising for later. Oh, a third one's coming in. Bugger off, you two. I'm getting used to this. It feels like being dropped into a nature documentary. Hey, mum's feeding the pup. Half Moon Island is dominated by the chinstrap penguins. These ones are molting. And so their situation has been described to me like this. Imagine you're on Laboriole. You've got the beautiful food, but you can't eat it. You can't go in the restaurants. That's what it's like for them. They're not waterproof while they're molting. So they can't get into the sea and they cannot feed. So they stand here and they wait and they dream. And their time will come. One of my Antarctic dreams was to swim in the southern Antarctic Ocean. But it's literally 0.4 of a degree. The outside temperature is two degrees. That's not why I won't do it. The reason I won't is because we're actually not allowed. So instead, I found another option. Pool party. There's nothing more liberating than swimming in a heated pool amongst the Antarctic mountains. I'm sure more people would be here if it wasn't below freezing. The tourist season for Antarctica is relatively short and only 50,000 people visit every year. Not many in the scheme of things, but it is a growing tide. And given what we're seeing, that's hardly surprising. Nikko Harbour is our first chance to land on the Antarctic Peninsula. Given the ice and snow, it's often difficult to park up and set foot here. But like the weather, luck is on our side. And we have our guides, who have a habit of making sure things work out. The continent of Antarctica. A very good morning to you. If I was game, or inclined, or maybe both, I could continue walking for a couple of months, all the way to the South Pole. But obviously, that's not happening. Touched my first iceberg. Nikko Harbour. A landscape dominated by glaciers crowding in. And penguins, of course. Look at all these penguins coming over. Look at them. Still funny. Still the most entertaining. Our constant and delightful companions, always with us on this voyage of discovery. Punctuating the sound of penguins is the cracking of ice in the glaciers. Occasionally, you'll get the thunder. It's fantastic. The sound of glaciers carving. Thousands of tonnes of ice shearing away from the walls is both beautiful and dangerous. Huge waves can seemingly come from nowhere. There's a whole chunk of that ice wall just fell down. Putting a perfect right-hand wave all the way along this beach. And then behind, there's a whale just sitting there and a seal or penguin next to it. See the whale? Hey. Wow. Is this the best yet? Well, quite possibly. For a complete assault on the senses, Nikko Harbour is hard to beat. Onward. For whilst this is unquestionably good, there's still stacks more to come. Incredibly, it's not all about the whales, for the seals impressed too. So that is the crab eater seal. The thing to remember specifically about the crab eater is it doesn't eat crabs. It eats krill. It's got a dog face. He's cute. It's one thing to see them on the beach or on the rocks, but like this... Well, this is stunning. They look like they're chilling without a care in the world, which surprises me because there is something sinister lurking close by. Particularly this one, looking almost prehistoric, is a fearsome leopard seal. Not exactly how we'd expect to see one. These predators look like they're just lazing around on an ice floe, so content and indifferent to us. But if they spotted a small seal or a penguin close by, they'd be in the water in a flash. Those razor-sharp teeth are the most lethal on the ice. Oh, so you can see how he moves now. So it's quite unusual to see these guys hanging out together like that because normally the crab eaters, they're off feeding on krill, doing their thing. The leopard seal is off feeding on usually different things, sometimes also krill, but he's very solitary because he is a predator. He will eat baby crab eaters. They're not exactly friends, so it's pretty cool to see them hanging out together like that. Nicknamed the Kodak Gap, the Lemire Channel is a true stunner. The entire 11-kilometre passage is a genuine photographic opportunity. At its narrowest, the passage is just 1,600 metres wide. As such, it's prone to being blocked by ice. The zodiac's lowered and at the ready, it's a matter of minutes before we're off to explore the historic Port Chaco. Everybody, welcome to Port Chaco. Perfect conditions today. We'll have a lovely time on shore and a lovely zodiac close to the icebergs. Enjoy it. I'm following in the footsteps of the locals. The trick is not to get lost, either physically or metaphorically. None of this feels real. It's literally eight o'clock in the morning and the weather is sublime and I don't know, it feels like we've been dropped in the Himalayas in a postcard, in a painting by some 17th-century realist painter. This is just beyond words. Jeez, I hope these photos work out. Before heading back to Laboriel, there's time to see a frozen art exhibit. It's known as the Iceberg Garden. It is nature's sculpture gallery. The colours are hard to comprehend. So many different shades of white and then there's blue as well, all difficult to digest. As for the scale, spires and arches and massive icy blocks drift silently by. Icebergs that have broken away from Antarctica's ice sheets are shunted here before heading north into the Southern Ocean. So welcome, everybody. This is what we call the Glacier Garden because as you can see, we're just surrounded by all of these beautiful glaciers and it's quite a unique place. Keep an eye out in front of us while I'm talking in case that whale pops back up. As I mentioned before, there's a couple of different types of ice you get here. You get the shelf ice from when this whole bay freezes completely over in winter and then you get the glacier ice that's carving off the sides here where all those glaciers are. These moments have me reassessing lots of things, not the least of which is our place in the world and on the planet. It's all so pure and pristine and perfect and we're so very fortunate to be able to experience it just like this. A moment to check ourselves, no question. This is a moment to digest. There's more ice on the water and our guides show due respect sliding into the bay. It's another beautiful vista on another beautiful day. Welcome, everybody. You're here at Peterman Island. You're the winter itch of Charcot. This place seems to be a holiday destination for our feathered friends. They seem a little lethargic. Maybe it's nap time or play time or just all round having fun time on Peterman Island. Marianne, this is, it is maybe one of the best views we've seen of the whole trip. Yeah, absolutely. So here you can have the super view on those icebergs. A view you see once, but if you come the next day, it would be a different one. Okay. Actually, if you look, especially on this arch, this iceberg, looking at an arch. Well, an hour ago, it was just behind this one, just in front of me. So in an hour, that's moved, what, 100 metres? Absolutely. And other ones have come in? Absolutely. So you'll never get... Never get the same view. But you'll think you'll get something. And you get something else. Yeah, something else. Exactly. And it's never going to be that. Never, it cannot be. It's always beautiful, always. Watching this iceberg fly past, and we are stationary, shows how quickly things can change. It's no wonder these early adventurers found themselves iced in. And it's still a very real danger, even today. Dear guests, your captain speaking. So we are now crossing this famous polar circle, Antarctic Polar Circle, and we are proceeding to Itaie Island. Whilst we are definitely cruising the Antarctic Peninsula, for the purists, the Antarctic doesn't truly begin until crossing the polar circle, 66, 33, 44 degrees south. Getting there is no mean feat. And as already mentioned, it's not guaranteed from one voyage to the next. Weather and ice both play their part, as does the captain and his crew. It's a tense time on the bridge, for good reason. Our captain has to be sure not to make a wrong move. OK, please look out across two ports. Come to heading zero. Three, five, zero. Were we saving the best for last? Or is it the most unexpected? Without question, it's a big finish from below the polar circle. Welcome to Itaie, folks. Itaie is literally a snapshot of what it was like to live and work here as a scientific researcher back in the 1950s. Like a woolly mammoth preserved in the ice, Itaie is a small timber hut that's literally so hard to get to, very few have been lucky enough to see it. It is a true and genuine time capsule of retro Antarctic life. Furniture, clothing, instruments, even food. The only communication with the outside world was through Morse code to the Falkland Islands. Everything was left exactly as it is today when the British research team abandoned the base at short notice. To be honest, it looks set up, like a display, but I promise you it's not. This is literally how it was left in 1959. At the end of their third summer, the ship came to collect the researchers, but the bay was completely blocked with ice. Faced with the prospect of a third long winter, sleds were packed and the men hiked 50 kilometres to a harbour that was clear of ice. That was it for detail. Enough was enough. See, this is pretty cool, Flo. You've got your old-fashioned panoramic. Oh, yes. You know, no iPhone back then, eh? Yeah, what I... Put the photos together. To be here is a treasure, that's obvious, but Florence puts it all in perspective. So amazing that we can be here. I've heard so much about this base for five years. This is true expedition cruising. I mean, you know, like, so we're like... This is a true expedition. And if you're seeing it for the first time, it must be, you know, we can't appreciate how special it is until we talk to you and see your eyes just, you know, light up like a, you know, a lavender oven in a candy shop. Yeah, I think I guess that's true, yeah. No, this is true expedition, yeah. Just seeing how it works with the ice, you saw it this morning. It wasn't necessarily easy. And then we get here and then we've got these wind gusts. Not easy again. There's a lot of ice here. Yeah, it's absolutely expedition and adventure. Good job. You've done a great job. Thank you so much. And for Flo, it really is a revelation. Again, her passion gives us an idea of how truly special this is. It's like the homemade scrabble board as well. Absolutely. God, it would have been hard. Obviously. Oh my God. Well, let's just be... But imagine this, you're a scientist. You're young and you love your topic. Nobody has ever done any research here. You're young, you like adventure and you're here for three years. Yeah. Three summers, two winters. All men and their magazines. That's the thing, yeah. I'm sort of open here on the tidbit page, which literally says tidbits. Now that we're at the end, I come back to the first question. Was it the destination or the journey? And I think it has to be both. I mean, to come to the Antarctic Circle with Penant, the world leader in luxury expeditions, has been extraordinary. I thought I knew what it would be like. I thought I had a feeling, but every step's been surprising and gloriously surprising. It's the animals, it's the people, it's the wilderness, it's the fragility, it's just everything. Will it change my life? Most probably, but it'll take time for that to happen. Time to sit back and think about the stories and see the photos. And it's hard enough to remember a morning once you get to the afternoon, there's so much going on. But a brilliant, brilliant life experience in one of the world's great places. By the numbers, if we were checking things off in a list, there really isn't much left to see. And yet, it really does feel as if we've barely scratched the surface. Moving even one step or two offers a whole new perspective. So seeing Antarctica once can only mean the first time. For seeing it once is barely seeing it at all.