Silversea’s 30th Anniversary: Natural Beauty, Wildlife and Serenity

Even before the 2008 debut of Silver Explorer, the line’s first expedition ship, Silversea excelled in seeking out the world’s natural beauty – its wildlife, the untrammeled landscapes, the places where guests could escape the frenetic pace of life at home. (Case in point: Our cover photo of Antarctic penguins, snapped by Silversea guest Rob Lind.) Silversea’s smaller ships mean the fleet can tuck into ports that most big ships cannot, and those settings can and do deliver extraordinary experiences.

One such place for me was the small island town of Wrangell, Alaska, where I joined a tour to the Anan Wildlife Observatory on the mainland, 30 miles away. We arrived at the renowned bear-viewing site just after the official season, when just a few dozen permits are issued daily. But the salmon were running late that year, and so, escorted by two rangers carrying shotguns, we followed a short trail through an exquisite forest of Sitka spruce to a deck and photo “hide” overlooking gushing falls.

Several of us descended into the wet, cramped hide, its floor just a few feet above the water’s edge. At first, I saw nothing. But a few minutes after settling in, I heard the clatter of a camera shutter. Across the churning stream, a snout appeared from behind a rock at the water’s edge. It was a diminutive black bear. Soon, other, bigger bears materialized, some approaching atop the downed trees lining the riverbank.

The poor, oblivious salmon repeatedly attempted to crest the falls, but mostly they flailed, pooling up at the bears’ feet. The bears also seemed oblivious to us, and from inside the hide, there was an anxious moment when one of the carnivores strutted by less than 10 feet away. Above, bears materialized on all sides of the deck, which was nominally protected with a railing – and our armed guides. On our way back to the ship, a grizzly mama, several hundred feet away, watched as her three cubs played on the opposite side of the estuary where the stream exits. She paid us no mind. 

How privileged I felt to inhabit this place and to share it with some of nature’s fiercest creatures a mere stone’s throw away. It’s a transcendent memory, but I am not the only one to experience such serenity. 

Silversea guest Jim Cossler brought home such remembrances at least twice in 2024.

“My wife and I know how blessed we are to have traveled extensively in over 50 countries to date, checking each trip off our ever-diminishing bucket list. At least we thought so when Silversea took us to our final continent of travel, Antarctica. We have so many amazing memories: the stunningly beautiful landscapes; the massive art form icebergs; glaciers calving; hiking among the huge penguin and seal colonies. Oh, and the whales – and to be so close to them. But even better for us was to have easy access to the scientists on board who could give us context to what we had actually seen.

“We thought Antarctica was the end of the bucket list. It wasn’t. In July, Silversea took us to Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. I can’t even begin to describe it: otherworldly, ethereal, surreal, a place of worship and thanksgiving. It’s one of the most remote and inaccessible places on the planet yet teaming with life. The absolute highlight of the trip was the moment the captain sailed our ship into the North Pole ice pack!  

“St. Augustine said, ‘The world is a book, and those who don’t travel only read one page.’ Thank you, Silversea, for adding such an amazing chapter to our travel book.”

Antarctica paints a vivid picture for most who travel there, and New Zealander Douglas Leigh also brought back sterling recollections.

“After leaving Port Lockroy just off the Antarctic Peninsula, we sailed in perfect conditions through the Lemaire Channel, black and white mountains rising on both sides into a lowering cloud. The icebergs bumping and scraping down the hull; passengers in their red jackets on the bow; cameras in hand. Then, around the starboard corner, we entered the iceberg graveyard. We boarded our Zodiac. Bergs ground here and roll, creating fantastic shapes. In totally calm conditions, the late afternoon sun gave the low clouds a pink hue. Our driver stopped the Zodiac’s motor. The stillness was indescribably peaceful, a moment to treasure. Around another iceberg, another Zodiac was dispensing Champagne while a leopard seal rested on a flat area of ice. The world was perfect and so quiet.”

For those lucky to have traveled to the ends of the Earth, the back of beyond still beckons, and Dorothy Thompson found it in the remote outer Seychelles.

“From the top of the world to the bottom of the world, I have enjoyed my Silversea adventures, most particularly the expedition cruises, which provide what I find to be the perfect balance of adventure and comfort. I’ve met and enjoyed conversations about the lives of local people on tiny, remote islands, encountered elephant seals, penguins, bountiful bird colonies. Yet it is what I’ve learned about myself that may be the most valuable.

“One of my most perfect travel days was what I call Lost in Desroches: no roads, only footpaths on this island. I thought I’d go for a walk and sort of zoned out looking at giant spiders, birds, coconuts. Soon, I had no clue where I was. Well, it’s a tiny island, I thought; if you go to the edge and circumambulate, you should get back to where you started, right? Not to worry. I have my backpack, water, camera, sun block, a towel. I’m a woman alone with nature. I play tag with sand crabs. Play tag with the ocean. Find red coral. Whew –those sand vistas are deceptive. What looked like a short walk takes an hour…then another and another. Soaked in sweat, covered with sand, exhausted, I found my way back. It was great.”

For guest Cemre Birand, that Silversea moment came while visiting a small island nation so far off the usual charts that I had to look it up. Niue lies northeast of Tonga, and with a population of less than 2,000, sees few visitors. But Silversea manages to swing by on occasion, and Birand was aboard for one of those calls.

“I was on the Silver Discoverer, visiting a speck in the Pacific Ocean, the island of Niue. There was an option of cave diving or normal diving, and I chose the latter as I am claustrophobic. As we approached, I was told the dive site was named Snake Alley. We dived with the most poisonous black and yellow sea snakes swirling all around us. My divemaster told me not to worry as their mouths were very small and they couldn’t get a bite off of me. It was one of the many memorable dives I had with my wonderful dive masters. I miss the Silver Discoverer so very much – not only the dives, but also all the experts who taught me so much about the ocean.”

A favorite among the many shore excursions I’ve done in Alaska is the helicopter flight to the Juneau Icefield, an enormous blanket of ice, up to 5,000 feet deep and stretching 87 miles along the U.S.-Canada border. Seeing the icefield from the air is awesome, but Eleanor Onstott has a choice recollection from her visit:

“It’s almost impossible to pick a most memorable experience. Was it the gorgeous scenery from the luxury train in Skagway? The fabulous whale sightings in Sitka? Yes and yes. But cuddling with the sled dogs in Juneau on the glacier had to be my personal favorite. I didn’t want to leave!”

Again and again, we are drawn back to Antarctica. Alfred Steffen visited during Silversea’s inaugural 2008–09 season with the Prince Albert II (later renamed Silver Explorer) and explains the appeal of one of the South Pole’s chief lures.

“We were on a wet landing at St. Andrew’s Bay, South Georgia. We waded through the shallow water on the beach. A somewhat penetrating smell wafted, and we heard noises that we could not identify. The beach went up a bit, and we were curious about what would await us up on the hilltop. What we saw then took our breath away: We looked into a valley in which a huge colony of King penguins had settled.

“There must have been thousands of them who competed for attention. They were full-grown King penguins in their colored black-white-gold plumage, many of them with their chicks, like balls of fine brown wool already showing the beauty they would become one day. This spectacle is deeply etched into our memory and reminds us again and again of the magnificence and beauty of our planet with its flora and fauna, which we are always ready to discover with Silversea.”

Editor’s Note: Want to experience more Silversea memories over the past 30 years? Check out additional vignettes from Silversea guests. You can read them here.