Antarctica · AQ

Schollaert Channel

The Schollaert Channel is a broad, deep waterway slicing through the Palmer Archipelago off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, hemmed in by two of the region's great islands: glaciated Brabant Island to the northeast and the larger Anvers Island to the southwest. Far from a dead end, it is a working sea corridor that links Dallmann Bay up to the northwest with the famous Gerlache Strait down to the southeast, so expedition vessels threading between the peninsula's islands frequently glide straight through its icy heart. What makes the channel special is the sheer concentration of Antarctic drama packed into a single crossing. Steep, ice-clad peaks rise on both shores, tabular bergs and smaller growlers drift with the swell, and the deep, clear water runs between them like a fjord in motion. For a traveler whose itinerary includes it, the Schollaert Channel is rarely a place you land on but a place you sail through in wonder—a window-side show of glaciers, sea ice and open ocean stacked one against the other.