A new cruise on one of Ponant’s high-tech, state-of-the-art ships promises close encounters with the Weddell Sea and Larsen Ice Shelf in one of the most remote areas on the planet

You’re a long way from anywhere once you reach the Weddell Sea. This remote body of water lies off the seldom-visited eastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. To call it magical would be no understatement: it’s a silent, almost dreamlike world of glaciers, ice floes and alpine peaks — a binary world of blue sky and white that stretches to the horizon in all directions, making for unforgettable sailing.

Ponant’s 11-night Weddell Sea and Larsen Ice Shelf expedition cruise showcases this most spectacular of regions to unrivalled effect. The Larsen Ice Shelf, on the edge of the Weddell Sea, has produced some of the largest tabletop icebergs ever seen. It also marks the ship’s ultimate destination, and as the vessel heads into deep Antarctica, those on board become immersed by the great white continent.

The ship departs from Ushuaia, in Argentina’s southern Tierra del Fuego region, before sailing across the fabled Drake Passage via the far-flung South Shetland Islands.

Over the next week and a half, as well as history and wildlife lectures from Ponant’s team of expert naturalists, passengers have the chance to kayak between ice floes, ride on hovercrafts and electric snowmobiles, try scuba diving and even rise above the Antarctic landscape in a hot air balloon.

Numerous shore visits in rigid-inflatable boats provide the ideal opportunity to see the region’s extraordinary wildlife up close, from leopard seals and wandering albatrosses to Adélie penguins and humpback whales. Few voyages can lay genuine claim to being the trip of a lifetime, but visiting the Earth’s lower-latitudes on an intrepid, educational expedition is emphatically one of them.