We knew the day would come when we would have to turn northward and return to Tierra del Fuego, the region from which we started. The Antarctic Peninsula, the South Shetland Islands, and ice in many forms were left astern late last night as we sailed out into the open ocean and the rolling seas of the Drake Passage. With a mild start to the crossing, we had time to reflect on the wide experiences and diverse landscapes of our expedition. We enjoyed a number of presentations and prepared ourselves for the passage as we contemplated the conundrum: how to fit all our gear back into the luggage from which it came?
- Daily Expedition Reports
- 28 Dec 2022
The Southern Drake Passage, 12/28/2022, National Geographic Resolution
- Aboard the National Geographic Resolution
- Antarctica
Robert Edwards, Naturalist
Growing up in the Appalachian foothills of the Garden State, Rob instinctively knew it made a lot more sense to head over the hill into the fields, forests, lakes, and streams behind his house, rather than down the road to the shopping mall in front ...
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Antarctica and Patagonia: Legendary Ice and Epic Fjords
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3/8/2025
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Torres del Paine
Can the weather get any better? March is mid-fall here, equivalent to October back home. It was still dark when we boarded buses for our full-day tour of southern Chile’s iconic Torres del Paine National Park. We drove north. A rosy glow at the skyline slowly transformed into golden light, casting slanted shadows as the sun rose over the hills to the east, illuminating the mountains in front of us. Some of us were on the panoramic tour, visiting key scenic lookouts and finishing at Rio Serrano for a traditional Patagonian asado, or barbecue. Whole lambs had been roasting over lenga wood fires all morning. The rest of us were on a slightly longer tour, with two lovely hikes breaking up the bus ride. (We still enjoyed the lamb barbecue!) We were blessed with blue skies, sunshine, and no wind, which is very unusual for southern Patagonia. Well, that is, until our second hike, up a high hill called Cerro Condor, where the wind was so strong that it was hard to walk…at times, even to stand! After our delicious barbecue, we headed back to National Geographic Explorer , where it was docked at Puerto Natales, ready to continue our adventure.
3/7/2025
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Bernal Glacier and Kirke Narrows
We were up before sunrise this morning to watch the pink glow as it descended over the mountains and glaciers around us. A short hike brought us to the foot of Bernal Glacier just when the colors were at their most brilliant. We had a second opportunity to stand in awe as we contemplated the sheer power of ice needed to carve this beautiful landscape. Back on board, we stretched our minds in an abstract direction with a workshop on the use of watercolor to document our expedition from Naturalist Shannon Malone. Our timing was planned around our passage through the Kirke Narrows. We needed to pass through at slack tide to navigate the strait, which is barely three times the width of National Geographic Explorer .