Adventure Cruises To Feed The Soul

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday November 24, 1994

NORMAN NORTH

CHARLES Darwin was fascinated on his voyage to the Galapagos Islands in the 1830s to find many unique species of wildlife. His deduction that this was due to the islands' remoteness influenced his theory of evolution.

Today the visitor to these Pacific islands off the coast of Ecuador is still fascinated by the fauna and flora.

Abercrombie and Kent, a travel company renowned world-wide for high-quality tours for individuals and small groups with specialist interests, uses for its Galapagos cruises motor vessels carrying between 40 and 90 passengers each.

I can vouch for the understated luxury and superior service on an Abercrombie and Kent specialist cruise, having returned recently from one on the 50-passenger Hebridean Princess around the Hebrides and north-west coast of Scotland.

These are just two of what I like to describe as cerebral cruises, where the company is small and the program aimed at garnering knowledge and appreciating the landscape.

The same company offers the Explorer for cruises in South American waters and Antarctica.

Another region frozen for much of the year, Alaska, has become a byword for cruising in the past couple of decades.

For those who want to concentrate on the wild and wonderful wilderness and its creatures, the Spirit of Alaska and its sister ships are about 30 metres long - about the beam of a big liner - and carry a maximum of 101 passengers.

Far from any dock - any civilisation - The Spirit of Alaska will nose gently onto a bank and slide a ladder over its bow to let passengers walk where, possibly, no foot has trod before.

The Sea of Cortez could not have a more different environment. It lies between the peninsula of Baja California and the mainland of Mexico. Its desert shorelines are forbidding to human habitation, but like the frozen wilds of Alaska, they teem with wildlife. There can be no doubt they are preferable for swimming and snorkeling, too.

Here, at times, you will find the Yorktown Clipper, a 138-passenger, shallow draft vessel that, with the Nantucket Clipper, sails the bays, deltas and rivers of America's east and west coast.

Another contrast: The World Discoverer plies the South Seas islands across the Pacific, from the Solomons in the west, to Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoas, Cook, Society, Marquesas and the Taumoto Archipelago, and eastward to lonely, intriguing Easter Island.

The settings vary, but these ships have one thing in common: accomplished lecturers on, and guides to, the ecology of the waters and ports or islands-of-call, biologists, anthropologists, geologists, historians ...

* Abercrombie and Kent can be contacted (toll free) on 008 33 1429. The Galapagos cruises are part of South American tours. A 12-day tour with seven days in the islands costs (1994 prices) from $4,942 plus $532 for internal air fares and $753 air fare from Miami. Hebridean cruises - some will visit Ireland in 1995 - range from four to 14 nights. The popular seven-night gardens and castles cruise starts from $3,538. For Antarctic cruises, including Aerolineas Argentinas return flights from Sydney, and on to Buenos Aires and Santiago, a 15-day tour with 10 nights aboard, costs from $9,350.

For information on Alaskan cruises on the Spirit of Alaska and associated vessels, contact World Adventure on (02) 956 7766. As an example, a cruise between Seattle and Juneau, from May to August, (voyage only) would start at$2,787 plus port tax, and with an associated northern land tour (14 nights)$5,125 plus port tax.

Clipper Voyages is represented in Australia by World Travel Holidays, (free call) 1-800-805351. The lowest priced cabin on a Sea of Cortez cruise is$4,000; an eight-night cruise on the waterways of North California $1,955; the Great Lakes Odyssey, 23 nights, has a minimum fare of $9,200 (all cruise only).

World Discovery cruises on the Pacific, also represented by World Travel Holidays, start at $7,715 for 21 days from Papeete in Tahiti to Laukota, Fiji

All fares are per person twin share.

© 1994 Sydney Morning Herald

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