“And then I left the uninhabited world.”

Braving untamed Antarctica – perhaps I’d dreamt of it my whole life. In the meanwhile I embarked already several times an extraordinary expedition cruise towards the deep south and the mighty ice, seeing penguins, seals and humpback whales. It always is an intense and unforgettable adventure through the blue ice. 

The Last Piece of Land 
Aboard the HANSEATIC inspiration, it's undeniable: you're truly going somewhere almost no one else reaches. With a PC6 ice class, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises' state-of-the-art expedition ship boasts the highest possible ice class for passenger vessels. 

For me, the spectacular tone was set immediately. From Ushuaia in Argentinian Tierra del Fuego, you set off on a fantastic voyage through the Beagle Channel. At the end of the strait, you reach 'El fin del mundo,' the last piece of land. You feel it in everything: here, we are leaving the inhabited world.

Rising Glaciers 
A fascinating passage via the Falkland Islands took us to South Georgia. You might not have heard of it, but in 1946, author Niall Rankin described the island like this: 'If you would take a giant knife and cut under the highest mountain ridges of Switzerland – precisely where the enormous glaciers tumble down into the valley – and if you then let your piece of mountain, dripping with glacial ice, fall into the sea here… I think you would get a good idea of this place.' I couldn't have put it better myself.

Welcomed by tens of thousands of island inhabitants, including king penguins, elephant seals and fur seals, you feel exactly like a true explorer. Magical.

Immeasurable Weddell Sea 
Halfway through the journey we discovered the Weddell Sea, my fellow travellers and I hadn't observed nearly anything on the radar but our own ship. That's how immeasurable and far from civilization the Weddell Sea is, almost 100 times the size of Belgium on its own. Searching our way through the ice we might observe the impressive Larsen A ice shelfon the horizon. Depending of the weather conditions we had a Zodiac excursion between colossal tabular icebergs whose immense size we couldn't even guess, especially when you consider that only 10% of such a giant is above the water's surface. 

The Peninsula of Antarctica 
My first landing ever on the Antarctic peninsula at Brown Bluff immediately left a deep impression. Viewed from the ship, it was like a Picasso painting. A rust-colored volcano with a black rocky coast, the entire coastline colored with enormous white and brown areas packed with large colonies of Adelie and gentoo penguins.

Most of the islands and channels in this part of Antarctica were mapped in 1897-1899 by… a Belgian explorer: Adrien de Gerlache. Hence the Islands of Antwerp, Brabant and Liège, named after the Belgian provinces. Wilhelmina Bay, on the other hand, received a Dutch name, in gratitude to the Dutch royal house for financing the Belgian expedition. 

Bathing in a Crater 
In the inside lake of Deception Island, there is an opportunity to get the certificate of the Antarctic plunge: bathing at a temperature of 0.5 °C! This is of course only possible if the conditions do allow, as security for all passengers is at all time priority number one. 

During the passage along Lemaire Channel, the ship is often visited by humpback whales.  

After navigating the famous Drake Passage, the expedition ends again in Ushuaia before flying back to Buenos Aires. A trip to Antarctica and the Subantarctic Islands remain with thousands of photos, a head full of memories and a lifelong dream fulfilled, my personal number 1 trip. 

If I would travel back to Antarctica? Absolutely, every expedition down there is always a new adventure, that is what expedition is all about.