Overnight flight.

Arrive at the airport and meet our representative in the arrivals hall. Transfer to the hotel with free time to rest until orientation in the afternoon. Please note early check in is included in the program. This afternoon, attend a program orientation and then enjoy a field trip with a local expert through Buenos Aires. Begin by walking a little over a half mile in total from the hotel and around the historic site on the mostly smooth, paved streets of the city. The Plaza de Mayo is the main square of Buenos Aires and, from here, we will have the opportunity to see La Casa Rosada and La Catedral as well as other important historical monuments and buildings. Transfer back to the hotel and freshen up for dinner. At 6pm, depart to a local cellar/bar for a wine tasting activity and a chance to learn about some of Argentina's famed regional wines and have dinner.

Enjoy an early breakfast and then explore the city with visits to San Telmo, and La Boca. Have lunch and then some time at leisure before returning to the hotel for a 5pm lecture on Tango. Learn about the origins of tango which have been traced to working-class suburbs of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, Uruguay around the end of the 19th century. At 8pm, depart for a Tango experience and dinner at a local restaurant.

Transfer to the airport to catch the approximately 3.5 hour flight to Ushuaia, a resort town on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago and one of the southernmost cities on the planet. Nicknamed "The End of the World," it is the starting point for expeditions to Antarctica. Upon arrival, embark on an afternoon city walk in Ushuaia visiting the Maritime and End of the World Museums. Have time to explore and get lunch on your own. This evening, enjoy a gastronomic experience with a local chef at the hotel.

This morning luggage drop off between 08.00 am and 11.30 am at Avenida Maipú 1210 (about 500 meters from the pier). In front of the building there will be two Oceanwide Expeditions banners and assistance is available. Continue our day with a visit to Tierra del Fuego National Park, the country's first shoreline park. Native forests of lengas, coihues, ñires, canelos, and mossy foliage are home to guanacos, foxes, and muskrats. Short trails follow the southern edges of the park, providing visitors with scenic views of the Ensenada and Lapataia Bays, and the famous Beagle Channel. Sea birds are abundant along the coast and include albatross, terns, geese, ducks, and gulls. Also be on the lookout for condors, Magellanic woodpeckers, and Austral conures. A trail that leads west from Bahia Ensenada passes through an area of archaeological importance; grass covered shell mounds left by the Yamaná (a.k.a. Yahgan) inhabitants hundreds of years ago. This afternoon have a typical lamb barbecue for lunch. Afterwards, visit with a group of local women to learn about traditional wool weaving. Later this afternoon, transfer to the ship, boarding starts at 4:00pm, bid your group leader goodbye and this evening sail along the mountain-fringed Beagle Channel. There will be a welcome briefing and dinner on board.

During this special Basecamp departure, all offered activities (including camping, kayaking, snowshoe/hiking, mountaineering, photo workshop) as well as standard included shore excursions and zodiac cruises) are free of charge.

Over the next two days on the Drake Passage, you enjoy some of the same experiences encountered by the great polar explorers who first charted these regions: cool salt breezes, rolling seas, maybe even a fin whale spouting up sea spray. After passing the Antarctic Convergence - Antarctica's natural boundary, formed when north-flowing cold waters collide with warmer sub-Antarctic seas - you are in the circum-Antarctic upwelling zone.

Not only does the marine life change, the avian life changes too. Wandering albatrosses, grey-headed albatrosses, black-browed albatrosses, light-mantled sooty albatrosses, cape pigeons, southern fulmars, Wilson's storm petrels, blue petrels, and Antarctic petrels are a few of the birds you might see.

Gray stone peaks sketched with snow, towers of broken blue-white ice, and dramatically different wildlife below and above. You first pass the snow-capped Melchior Islands and Schollaert Channel, sailing between Brabant and Anvers Islands.

Over the next several days, the order of our itinerary and shore excursions will depend on local conditions at the time. Sites you may visit include Neko Harbor and Paradise Bay. An epic landscape of mammoth glaciers and endless wind-carved snow, Neko Harbor offers opportunities for a Zodiac cruise and landing that afford the closest views of the surrounding alpine peaks. At Paradise Bay you may be able to take a Zodiac cruise in these sprawling, ice-flecked waters, where there's a good chance you'll encounter humpback and minke whales.

We continue our exploration through the Antarctic Peninsula. Sites you may visit include Pléneau & Petermann Islands and Port Lockroy. If the ice allows it, we could sail through the Lemaire Channel in search of Adélie penguins and blue-eyed shags. There is also a possibility you'll encounter humpback and minke whales here, as well as leopard seals. After sailing through the Neumayer Channel, we may get the chance to visit the former British research station at Port Lockroy on Goudier Island, now a museum and post office. You may also be able to partake in activities around Jougla Point, meeting Gentoo penguins and blue-eyed shags. There are great opportunities also for kayaking and camping here, and when conditions are right, you can even snowshoe around the shore.

Our last full day in Antarctica may include visits to Danco Island and Wilhelmina Bay. Activities here may focus on the Gentoo penguins nesting on the island, in addition to the Weddell and crab eater seals that can be found nearby. Wilhelmina Bay is a great place to spot humpback whales. You also may embark on a Zodiac cruise ending at the ghostly wreck of the Guvernøren, a whaling vessel that caught fire here in 1915. Around the Melchior Islands, amid a frozen landscape peopled with icebergs, you may encounter even more whales, leopard seals, and crab eater seals. Conditions on the Drake Passage determine the exact time of departure.

Your return voyage is far from lonely. While crossing the Drake, you're again greeted by the vast array of seabirds remembered from the passage south. But they seem a little more familiar to you now, and you to them.

The volcanic islands of the South Shetlands are windswept and often cloaked in mist, but they do offer subtle pleasures: There’s a wide variety of flora (mosses, lichens, flowering grasses) and no small amount of fauna (Gentoo penguins, chinstrap penguins, southern giant petrels). In Deception Island, the ship plunges through Neptune’s Bellows and into the flooded caldera. Here you find hot springs, an abandoned whaling station, and thousands of cape petrels – along with kelp gulls, brown and south polar skuas, and Antarctic terns. A good hike is a possibility in this fascinating and desolate volcanic landscape. As an alternative, you may be able to engage in activities near Half Moon Island. Here chinstrap penguins and Weddell seals often haul out onto the beach near Cámara Base, an Argentine scientific research station. Conditions on the Drake Passage determine the exact time of departure.

On your last day of near-shore activities, you pass the Melchior Islands toward the open sea. Keep a sharp lookout for humpback whales in Dallmann Bay. You might also shoot for Half Moon Island, in the South Shetlands, with further chances for activities.

Conditions on the Drake Passage determine the exact time of departure.

Crossing the Drake Passage.

Today is your last day at sea as we conclude the crossing of the Drake Passage.

Arrive back to Ushuaia, disembark and transfer to the airport for your flight to Buenos Aires. Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, collect luggage and then meet your driver for transfer to the international airport for individual departures. Please note flights from Ushuaia should be booked in the afternoon and flights from Buenos Aires in the late evening.

Arrive home.