The crossing brings the first taste of the Southern Ocean proper: rolling seas, cool salt air and perhaps a fin whale blow on the horizon. Past the Antarctic Convergence the birdlife multiplies, with several albatross species, cape pigeons, southern fulmars and Antarctic petrels among the ship's escorts.

Entering through the Antarctic Sound beneath huge tabular icebergs, the hunt for emperor penguins begins, using ship and helicopters together. Scenic flights may sweep over the rarely seen western slopes of the Antarctic Sound, a wilderness of layered sandstone, lava flows, glaciers and pack ice where lone emperors and Adelies dot the floes. A helicopter may set you down on a rocky rise above Duse Bay, or at Seymour Island, where the Swedish Antarctic Expedition endured its harrowing winter of 1901 to 1904 among fossil rich sedimentary hills. If the route south is free of multi year pack ice, the great prize comes within reach: ship to shore helicopter transfers towards Snow Hill Island, followed by a walk of up to 45 minutes to the emperor rookery itself. Where deeper penetration of the Weddell Sea is possible, Zodiacs may land at Devil Island beneath its Adelie covered hill, at Brown Bluff, perhaps the most scenic corner of the continent's northern tip, and at Gourdin Island, where chinstrap, gentoo and Adelie penguins share the shore.

The final landing of the voyage is inside the flooded caldera of Deception Island, at Pendulum Cove or Whalers Bay, before the ship turns for home; conditions on the Drake set the departure hour.

The homeward crossing is spent in the company of the same seabirds that led the way south, with time to sort photographs and let the experience settle.

Disembarkation at Ushuaia closes the voyage. A note on expectations: helicopter operations depend wholly on ice, sea and weather, no set amount of flight time is guaranteed, and reaching the rookery is never certain. Landings there succeeded in 2013, 2017 to 2019 and 2022 to 2024, but not in every season, and that uncertainty is part of what makes success extraordinary.