We also wanted to go on a small ship with only a limited number of fellow passengers. We were not keen on the cheaper cruises where up to 300 passengers were carried and the durations were rather short. We were also concerned that the cruise ship followed the Antarctic Convention and made minimal environmental impact. A final question was when to go. Later in the season the ice conditions would be better, but the chances of seeing Emperor Penguins much later than the beginning of January would be very slim.
Emperors have a peculiar breeding cycle.
The males actually incubate the eggs in the dark Antarctic winter in temperatures as low as -70C so that the adults can complete breeding and undergo their moult in spring and early summer. They then go out to sea until late summer when breeding starts over again. In January, on our return from Canada, we had almost decided the Klebnikov was the best available trip and were more or less ready to book it when Wildwings told us they had just received information about another trip organised by Southern Heritage Expeditions . As soon as we saw the brochure we knew this was the perfect trip for us. In all we could expect to see up to 11 different species of penguins in the wild on this trip.