Announcing! Our 1st Antarctic trek In our 30 years of polar travel, we've explored Arctic realms from Siberia to Svalbard. Now for the first time, we're headed to Antarctica. In keeping with our flair for multi-faceted adventures, elements of this special trek include wildlife, culture, history and polar adventure. To make this happen, we've tapped the best in the business: Polar Expeditions, the world's foremost polar expedition outfitter, and Oceanwide Expeditions, the world's leading polar cruise ship operator. Our destination is Antarctica's South Georgia Island. With its boundless opportunities to observe unparalleled wildlife and breath-stopping scenery, South Georgia is a true Antarctic Oasis -- the most beautiful realm of the south polar sea. Time and again, visitors have referred to South Georgia as "Antarctica in a Nutshell," where the wonders of the world's wildest continent are all concentrated on one magical island. We’ll enjoy them all during the Antarctic spring. The Trek Our 18-day journey, October 17-November 3, 2012, embarks by ship from Montevideo, Uruguay, and returns to Ushuaia, Argentina. It features an 8-day circumnavigation of South Georgia with a dozen stops for zodiac tours and shore treks at scenic and historic sites. While most passengers will remain ship-based during our week's visit to South Georgia, a select team of suitably fit, trained & experienced candidates will have the option of a 4-day ski mountaineering traverse of the island. Our ski route retraces the climactic chapter of one of the most epic sagas in exploration history: Ernest Shackleton's "Endurance" expedition and his 1916 traverse of South Georgia to rescue his stranded teammates. Throughout our 18-day journey, stories from this trek and other polar expeditions will be shared in evening presentations on the ship, along with an optional leadership seminar for those wishing to build business skills. The Place South Georgia is a wildly spectacular 100-mile long mountain spine that soars from the depths of the South Atlantic like a massive breaching whale. Many of its sawtooth peaks exceed 6,000 ft. Mt. Paget tops out at nearly 10,000 ft. Over 160 glaciers sweep down towards the sea in the deep gorges that furrow the mountain walls. Ridge-top snow fields and grassy coastal plains (browsed by reindeer) complete its geographic diversity. A rich convergence of ocean currents along its fiord- lined shores makes its ecosystem among the most biodiverse on earth. South Georgia's extraordinary abundance of wildlife is comparable only with places like the Galapagos Islands. Millions of fur seals (95% of the world’s population), tens of millions of penguins (7 species), and hundreds of thousands of sea lions inhabit its shorelines. And it’s considered the greatest seabird island in the world, with petrels, prions and sheathbills all congregating during the October to January breeding season. But top billing goes to the enormous Wandering Albatross, the world’s largest flying bird and a ponderous wonder to observe with its 10- feet wing span! For decades South Georgia’s rich coastal waters made it the world’s richest whaling grounds. Numerous abandoned and now historic stations along its shores attest to that. And from those waters during that less enlightened era the largest animal ever known to have lived on this planet was harvested: a 110-foot, 400,000-pound blue whale with a heart as big as a VW and arteries large enough to swim through. Our 7-day circumnavigation of South Georgia includes up to a dozen stops with zodiac raft or hiking excursions at sites which highlight the scenic, historic and wildlife wonders of the island. Those who join our expedition for the 4-day ski traverse of the island’s interior will still catch many shoreline tours while also experiencing ice caps, mountains & glaciers. Of course, this journey has yet another dimension. Our route is the haunt of the one of the greatest adventure stories of all time which we’ll explore along the way -- a larger-than-life testament to heroism and human endurance. The Story In August 1914, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition set sail from England on the ship Endurance. Sir Ernest Shackleton and his 27 men hoped to complete by ski and dogsled the first traverse of Antarctica across the South Pole. But one day’s sail from the continent’s shores, their wooden vessel became entrapped in ice. Polar winter darkness descended and months passed as they awaited release. With the sun’s return, the ice on which they were stranded began to buckle and the Endurance was slowly crushed and sunk. In this darkest hour, with his dream now dashed, Shackleton set a new goal: to save the life of every crew member. They crammed into the salvaged lifeboats and were able to reach Elephant Island. On this barren crag of rock, their upturned boats provided shelter and penguins served as sustenance for many more months. With no hope of rescue, Shackleton and 5 teammates then set out on a “Hail Mary” attempt to summon help from the only human habitation in the Antarctic Ocean, a Norwegian whaling station on South Georgia Island. They set sail in their beaten-down open life boat, the James Caird, on an 800-mile journey across the most world’s most treacherous storm-tossed seas. After seventeen days adrift, against all odds and tortured by thirst and frostbite, they somehow pegged “a needle in a haystack.” Miraculously they had reached the island. To this day, that is considered among the greatest navigational feats ever. But the wildest chapter of this saga still awaited them. In their leaking boat, they had straggled ashore on South Georgia’s west side. The whaling station was on the east. With 22 men back at Elephant Island depending upon him, Shackleton now had to attempt a foot crossing of the island’s uncharted spine of mountains, snow fields and glaciers. Starved but unstoppable, Shackleton and 2 of his companions (two others too weak for the journey stayed back) fitted wooden screws on their tattered boot soles for traction and trudged off into the unknown expanse of glaciers, ice caps, crevasses and peaks. As night fell, rather than chance death at high altitude on a razor's edge ridge top, they roped together and sent themselves plunging like a human toboggan down a steep fog-enshrouded ice slope. Glissading with glee, they survived the ride. Then magically, 30 miles and 36 hours into their trek, they heard a steam whistle blow somewhere off in the mist. Shouting with euphoria, they realized that their uncanny navigational hunches had served them well once again. As they approached Stromness Station, stunned Norwegian sailors greeted them in utter disbelief. A boat rescue was arranged for their two comrades on the west shore but it took a Shackleton a few frantic months to arrange for a vessel that could successfully reach Elephant Island’s ice enshrouded shores. In August 1916, 635 days into this epic saga, Shackleton peered through tear-swollen eyes as his rescue vessel approached Elephant Island. He counted the figures on the beach. “They’re all there!” he exclaimed. “They’re all safe. Not a single life lost.” Shackleton and crew arrived home in England as highly vaunted heroes. But being feted by London’s high society held little luster for him compared to the peak-life power of his trek. He wrote: “We had seen God in His splendors, heard the text that Nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man.” Having “been to the mountaintop,” Shackleton found normal life unsettling. He returned to South Georgia in 1922 where he died of a heart attack, age 47, and was buried at Stromness. But his story lives on. It's told in nearly 50 books including his own and Alfred Lansing’s classic “Endurance.” It’s also the subject of numerous films, featuring such stars as Liam Neeson and Kenneth Branagh. And it’s not just the adventure that compels – it’s also Shackleton’s uncanny leadership: His fortitude amid absurdly brutal setbacks, his team mantra of unity and compassion, and most prominently his ability to bring out the best in his men. His leadership skills, dubbed the “Shackleton Way,” are explored in 3 business books and taught by numerous seminars and schools, including the Harvard Business School and the London School of Economics. His legacy lies not in what he himself achieved but what he drew out from others. He elicited from his men strength and endurance they never imagined they possessed. His strategy for achieving goals was to ennoble the people he shared these goals with. The Itinerary Day 1, Oct 17: Montevideo. Uruguay's capitol is a vibrant, eclectic city with a rich cultural life, accessed by air via Buenos Aires, Brazil, or direct flights from Miami. We embark that afternoon on the "Plancius," a 114-passenger, 5-deck ship. It originally served as the ice-strengthened oceanographic research vessel for the Royal Dutch Navy and has been totally rebuilt over the past two and a half years into a top-notch ice-class passenger vessel. The ship offers private or shared cabin and bathroom options, a restaurant-lecture room on deck 3 and a spacious observation lounge (with bar) on deck 5 where large windows offer full panorama views. "Plancius" also has large open deck spaces with full walk-around possibilities on deck 3, giving excellent opportunities to enjoy the scenery and wildlife. Days 2 – 5: At sea. Across the Southern Atlantic Ocean in the Westerlies, our ship will be followed by several species of albatrosses, storm petrels, shearwaters and diving petrels.