Crossing the Antarctic Circle cruise

Kissing the fish, saltwater baptisms, champagne on deck and the Order of the Red Nose – welcome to the bizarre world of Antarctic Circle crossing ceremonies.

A voice over the Tannoy announces that ‘the crossing’ is 30 minutes away. You put on your cold weather gear and emerge on deck, where everyone on the boat is gathered – a hundred or so of you, in matching jackets… except for the expedition leaders, who have all dressed up for the occasion in bedsheets as Neptune, God of the Sea, and his assorted attendants. Someone has an app on their phone, they’re showing you the latitude ticking up by the second in real time, approaching a few seconds beyond 66°33’S.

When you cross, the captain blasts the ship horn. Someone might give a solemn reading from Shackleton’s diary from the voyage of the Endurance, or you might partake in an odd Antarctic baptism. On trips which cross the Antarctic Circle, you’ll almost certainly have a toast – champagne, Buck’s Fizz, maybe a warm coffee with a nip of Baileys. There’s a group photo on deck and everybody cheers – revelling in the curiosity that there is absolutely no one around to hear you all.

It might seem incongruous with the majesty of the silent surroundings – or perhaps that’s the point. Ships make a big deal of the Antarctic crossing because it is a big deal. You are lucky to be here, and to be here safely in this forbidding, icy world.

Currently at approximately 66°33’50.1 south, and moving slightly south each year, the Antarctic Circle marks the point below which there is 24-hour daylight for at least one day a year in summer, and 24-hour darkness for at least one day a year in winter.

Whilst four million people live in the Arctic Circle, there is no permanent population in the Antarctic Circle. It’s far further from inhabited areas, hard and expensive to reach, so few have been. Most of Antarctica’s landmass is within the circle, but the Antarctic Peninsula juts out just above it. Since the peninsula is the place most people visit on Antarctica cruises, not many boats cross over the circle.

Crossing the Antarctic Circle tends to mean a longer voyage, and more time in the Antarctic. It’s generally colder, and you’ll find yourself passing through narrow channels between islands and the mainland, getting up close to amazing ice, and wonderful wildlife too.

Abbie Redman from Responsible Travel recently made this trip. “It really was a special moment and felt like we had joined an exclusive club,” she says. “I believe it was around 6am so to celebrate a bottle of Baileys was passed around to pop into our morning coffee to celebrate. A few of us then went outside to have a snowball fight on the deck of the boat as it had been snowing all night.”

Abbie went on to make a landing on the continent, where the guide performed an ‘Antarctic baptism’ with a toilet brush. But unusual rituals at the border are totally normal for cruises that venture this far south. Guests might be asked to kiss a dead fish, make a tribute to Neptune (or, possibly, a guide dressed up as Neptune), or have a circle drawn on their foreheads. Everyone becomes part of the Order of the Red Nose, an order for all maritime personnel who make the circle crossing by sea.

Karen Hollands, at our expert partner for Antarctic cruises, Aurora Expeditions, got off lightly. “For us it was in the middle of the night – some people were up on the bridge and took photos as we crossed, which was cool as you get a record of the degrees longitude you were at when you crossed.

“I was in bed, and I did get up and look out the window, but we were in the middle of the sea and it was dark outside.”

The next day, though, they gathered on deck for a champagne celebration. And if the crossing itself wasn’t exciting, just being the other side of the invisible line was:

“You get a sense of excitement that you’ve gone somewhere that not many people have been,” says Karen. “I feel like it’s more beautiful – there’s a stillness and a quietness – yes, you get that in other places, but it was more snowy here. The snow felt fresher and more powdery. The scenery is even more stunning, it’s huge, and the mountains are enormous. It felt elevated, on another level from further north. It doesn’t feel like many people have been there – and you think to yourself, wow I really am here!”

One of the reasons that this crossing is special is because it’s not always possible. The ice can be too thick, the weather too bad. Every crossing is different: brash ice and ominous skies, or a blue-sky day with crisp, fresh air.

When Abbie went, the doctor deemed the water too cold for swimming, so they did their ‘polar plunge’ – a rite of passage on these voyages – further north. When Karen went, they plunged, “as far south as you can get!” from the Antarctic peninsula, at Marguerite Bay on Stonington Island, a place surrounded by glacial scenery.

Of the tens of thousands of visitors to Antarctica every year, most are to the peninsula, and around 40,000 don’t go ashore. Few get much further than 67° south. Our Antarctic trips starting from New Zealand cross the Antarctic Circle and delve into the Ross Sea, reaching McMurdo Sound, at a whopping 77°.30’ S. This is the southernmost body of the water in the world; and is quite literally as far south as you can go by boat. On the way there’s Ross Sea orcas, massive penguin colonies, and colonies of massive penguins – emperor penguins are found here.

Silly rituals aside, try and take some time for yourself, too, when you’re in the circle.

“Go and stand somewhere on your own and get the whole sense of the vastness of it and how small you are,” says Karen. “Antarctica is untouched but this just felt even more so because of the snow and silence. Take yourself off and be a bit mindful of where you are.”

For all the fun of the crossings, what marks them out the most is their significance.

“If Antarctica didn’t already feel like true wilderness, crossing a line that so many don’t get a chance to cross felt like we were another step beyond our normal lives,” says Abbie. “It is a moment I will treasure for a long time.”

There are interesting research stations down here, placed here so that scientists could get information from within the Antarctic Circle. There are also the graves of researchers and expeditioners who died on Antarctica, and abandoned huts filled with tinned provisions, books and maps – it’s too cold and dry for anything to decay.

All the jollity of the circle crossing shouldn’t detract from the serious business of surviving this far south. Often, the toast when you cross the Antarctic Circle is to the first explorers who came here and gave their lives in doing so. Raise a mug of hot chocolate to that.