Shore time in Antarctic landings

[MarTex]

We are booked for an Antarctic Expedition in 2023.  Can anyone tell me about how much time they give you on shore landings. We will be on the Fridtjof Nansen.  Thanks in advance.

 

[WisRiver]

We were on the Fram in 2018 for an Antarctic Expedition.  There were about 300 passengers on board.  We were broken into 8 groups, A-H, of about 35 people.  Two groups would leave the ship about every two hours.  If I remember correctly, each group was to spend about 2 hours on shore.  Each group would have a chance to be first.  Once you were on shore no one kept track of when you should return.  On some stops two hours were enough, while on other stops (e.g., Deception Island), we stayed on shore for 5 or 6 hours.   If you are in the last group for the day, you on shore time could be as little as 2 hours.  Some of the stops, Port Lockroy,  were only worth the two hours.  One of the stops the weather was terrible, cold rain and wind, so an hour on shore was enough.  If I remember correctly, many people chose not to go on shore. 

[MarTex]

Thank you for your reply.  I think many more people will gain important insight on this topic..  Greatly appreciated.

[Paul S]

We were in Antarctica on Roald Amundsen in February 2020. I believe we had just under 400 people on board. A maximum of 100 people were allowed ashore at any one time. We were divided into groups of around 40, each given a name of a bird. The polarcirkel landing craft each took 10 passengers and 2 crew.  Each group was given a time to rendezvous at the embarkation platform, and your group's time varied every day,  I believe the times were spaced around 1 hour apart. There was a constant ferrying of passengers between the ship and shore. You had around 2 hours ashore, but were given a time to meet for the return trip, and as the group wasn't required to stay together when ashore you knew when to be back at the landing point.  

[csimm]

On 4/9/2022 at 4:38 PM, MarTex said:

We are booked for an Antarctic Expedition in 2023.  Can anyone tell me about how much time they give you on shore landings. We will be on the Fridtjof Nansen.  Thanks in advance.

 

What month are you sailing?

 

[CDNPolar]

We just returned from Antarctica on the Fridtjof Nansen.

 

Landings were pretty strict in timings.  They are strict in timings because they can only have 100 people on the continent at a time, and when you have 400 people that you have to get back and forth in one afternoon, you have to keep people tight in the timing.

 

You are also dealing with multiple cruise lines that have "bookings" for these landing sites.  You have set times that your ship has to be in and out.  For those that are saying that they had 2 hours on the continent at a time, good for them, but they could have been on a smaller ship with less guests, or had a landing site booking for longer.  We were told one day that we had to wait to land because there was a ship at the landing site that was soon to leave.  This is all about how many people can land at one time.

 

Basically we were instructed that we had to be back at the landing point anywhere from 50-60 minutes from the time we put our feet on the continent or we would delay or possibly prevent others from landing. If they cannot get you off the continent and others back in the time slot they have, then you will have issues.

 

You have cruises that offer 2 landings per day and longer landings but these are smaller ships with less people.

 

Snowshoeing was 90 minutes but this is including getting the snowshoes on and getting started.

 

Kayaking was 45 minutes in the water.

 

This was our experience just returning yesterday from Buenos Aires.

Edited January 14, 2023 by CDNPolar