Swan Hellenic has announced that SH Vega recently sailed from Tromsø, Norway, on its first cultural expedition cruise of the Arctic.
SH Vega is the second in a series of three ice-class, cultural expedition cruise vessels with a strong bias for extreme latitude areas. At 370 feet, the 10,600-ton vessel has been designed to visit the most inaccessible places on the planet. The vessel, which embarked on a 11-day exploration of the Svalbard Archipelago, will enable guests to gain a deeper experience of its mountains, glaciers, fjords, birds and mammals. On the way, they will get an opportunity to spot Arctic tern, little auk, northern fulmar, thick-billed murre and black-legged kittiwake, besides up-close encounters with polar bears, reindeer, Arctic fox, whales, dolphins, seals and walruses.
SH Vega, like its sister ship SH Minerva, has been designed to meet the latest environmental regulations and is self-sufficient for up to 40 days or 8,000 nautical miles. Arrangements have been made to implement battery technology, which would also make it possible to operate silently. The vessels are equipped with exhaust gas cleaning, advanced wastewater treatment systems and the waste storage facilities required for operating in sensitive polar areas. Providing spacious accommodation for 152 guests in 76 staterooms and suites, the vast majority with large balconies, SH Vega is operated by an onboard team of 120 personnel.
Departing Tromsø on July 30, SH Vega’s inaugural Arctic season will explore the Svalbard Archipelago and includes Iceland, Greenland, the Northwest Passage and Northern Canada. In late autumn, guests can sail down the U.S. East Coast over 12 days, exploring New York, Norfolk, Charleston and Miami. From November, a range of 11- to 21-day cultural expedition cruises of Antarctica will be offered until March 2023, when the ship sails up the West Coast of Africa to the Canary Islands and Western Europe, besides Britain and Ireland on the way to its second Arctic season. This will end with a crossing from Greenland to Nova Scotia, followed by the Caribbean and then Brazil in October 2023.
SH Minerva and SH Vega will be joined early next year by the slightly larger SH Diana, which is already under construction at the Helsinki Shipyard.
For more details, visit www.swanhellenic.com.
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