The Final Frontier

Seeking out a unique charter experience a journalist embarks on an expedition to the most forbidding destination on the planet: antarctica.

- Bill Springer

The first thing I noticed was the silence. This was not your average silence. It had texture. It had substance. It popped like champagne bubbles.

“What’s that sound?” I asked Richard White, our expert guide.

“Oh, that’s the sound of 1,000-year-old ice melting,” he said with a wry smile. “The air bubbles escaping from the melting ice pop when they hit the surface of the water.”

That’s when it hit me: The ability to hear and breathe clean, pure, 1,000-year-old “vintage air” is just one of the many reasons Antarctica is among the most exclusive cruising destinations on Earth.

The four-stroke outboards on our black, expedition-grade Zodiacs purred along as we slowly pushed small chunks of ice out of our way. Glaciers glistened in the high-latitude sun. The air was the freshest I’ve ever breathed. Big blue bergs made of ancient ice stood guard all around us.

At that point in our week long charter aboard the Hanse Explorer, a 160-foot-long, luxurious ice-class private yacht, we’d already heard thousands of squawking penguins feeding their young and seals barking contentiously to show the herd who’s boss. We’d even heard what pods of humpback whales breaching the surface sound like up close.

Expedition of a Lifetime

As you might expect, exploring Antarctica with an intimate group of people aboard a private charter yacht is an amazing experience, but one that’s incredibly difficult to plan and pull off. Fortunately, the experts at EYOS Expeditions organized every element of this trip (charter, guides, permits, flights, itineraries—everything) and made it all look pretty effortless.