Oceanwide Expeditions is launching two new expeditions in 2017 to the Ross Sea in Antarctica, providing passengers with the chance to explore the continent’s most fascinating sites. The ice-strengthened vessel Ortelius will travel with helicopters for the cruises, sailing from South America to the Antarctic Peninsula, crossing the Polar Circle, further west to Peter I Island, sailing in the Bellingshausen Sea along the ice-edge into the Ross Sea. The voyage continues to the uninhabited sub-Antarctic Campbell Island and ends after 32 days in New Zealand. The second cruise offers the same itinerary in reverse.

The cruises will land passengers in rarely visited areas, such as volcanic Peter I Island; the huts of the British explorers Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott on Ross Island; McMurdo Station; the Dry Valleys, where the conditions are the closest you get to the conditions on Mars; and Campbell Island, home to the Southern Royal Albatrosses.