Aurora Expeditions · Polar Class 6 · 130 expeditioners
Sylvia Earle
Named for the oceanographer who has spent more hours under the sea than anyone alive. An X-Bow for the crossings, a glass atrium in the bow, and 130 expeditioners who are off the ship more than on it.
Aurora Expeditions
A ship named for a scientist, run by expeditioners.
Dr Sylvia Earle led the first team of women aquanauts in 1970 and has logged more than 7,000 hours underwater. Aurora Expeditions named their second purpose-built ship after her in 2022, and gave it a Citizen Science Centre to match. An inverted Ulstein X-Bow for the Denmark Strait and the Barents Sea. A two-storey glass atrium in the bow. Fifteen Zodiacs from four doors. Aurora is Australian, founded in Sydney in 1991 by a mountaineer and an expedition organiser, and it shows: the day is built around being outside.
The glass atrium in the bow
Ulstein X-Bow
Fifteen Zodiacs, four doors
The Citizen Science Centre
Sylvia Earle moments
A ship of 130 is a ship where the expedition team knows your name by the second landing, and where the lounge in the bow fills the moment a bear is called.
Two storeys of glass, facing forward
The atrium lounge rises through two decks at the bow with glass on three sides. In Svalbard it is the first place on the ship to see the ice edge; in the evening it is where the recap happens, drink in hand.
Two storeys of glass, facing forward
The atrium lounge rises through two decks at the bow with glass on three sides. In Svalbard it is the first place on the ship to see the ice edge; in the evening it is where the recap happens, drink in hand.
Life on board
Aurora’s day is an expedition day: out after breakfast, back for lunch, out again, a recap at six. The ship around it is small, calm and Nordic in feel, with a library, a lecture theatre, a gym and a sauna for the hours between.
A sauna with a window, two outdoor jacuzzis and a gym on the upper deck. Small, calm and rarely busy.
Nordic interiors
Staterooms and suites
Around seventy staterooms over four decks, most with a balcony, and a run of single staterooms with no supplement. Clean Nordic lines, a window drawn for the sea, and interconnecting rooms for families and friends travelling together.
Aurora Stateroom
Deck 3, close to the mudroom and the Zodiac doors Two single beds or a double bed Porthole or window Private en suite
Aurora Stateroom
Deck 3, close to the mudroom and the Zodiac doors Two single beds or a double bed Porthole or window Private en suite
Sylvia Earle
An Infinity-class ship with an Australian crew
Sylvia Earle is one of SunStone’s Infinity-class expedition ships, designed by Ulstein in Norway and delivered in 2022. She is 104 metres long with Ice Class 1A and Polar Class 6 notation, the inverted X-Bow that slices a head sea rather than riding it, and four sea-level Zodiac doors. In the polar regions she carries 130 expeditioners, around 100 crew and an expedition team of fifteen or more.
In the Arctic she sails Svalbard Odyssey, Jewels of the Arctic between Svalbard and East Greenland, and the Northwest Passage. Aurora Expeditions is Australian owned and sails from Sydney, which is why so many of our guests already know the ships from Antarctica.
- 130 expeditioners
- Polar Class 6 · 104 m
- 15 Zodiacs · 4 doors
The expedition
How a day off the ship is made
Aurora calls them activities. Zodiac cruising, landings and hikes are included; kayaking, paddling and the photography programme are booked before you sail. The expedition team decides each morning which the weather allows.
Up to three outings a day, launched from four doors at once. Included.
Her Arctic season
Voyages aboard Sylvia Earle
Svalbard in ten nights, Svalbard to East Greenland in a fortnight, or the Northwest Passage. Tell us the month you have in mind and we will tell you which sailing suits it, which stateroom, and what we can do on the fare.
All expeditions
Good to know
Sylvia Earle, in practice
The questions we are asked most before guests choose this ship.
A maximum of 130 expeditioners in the polar regions, with around 100 crew and an expedition team of fifteen or more. Four Zodiac doors put the whole ship on the water in minutes.
The inverted bow slices through a swell instead of riding over it, which reduces pitching and spray. On the Barents Sea and the Denmark Strait it is the difference between a crossing you notice and one you sleep through.
Her hull carries Ice Class 1A and Polar Class 6 notation, built for the summer pack of Svalbard and the fjords of Greenland.
All meals, wine and beer with dinner, the expedition programme, Zodiac cruising and landings, guided hikes, the photography programme, a polar jacket to keep, boots to borrow and the charter flights listed on each voyage. Kayaking is booked in advance.
Via Oslo for Svalbard, with the Aurora charter to Longyearbyen, and via Reykjavík or Toronto for the Greenland and Northwest Passage voyages. We arrange the flights and the nights either side so the whole journey sits in one booking.
Made to measure
Tell us your Arctic, we build the rest
Every guest sails differently. Tell us what you are hoping for and who you are travelling with, and we shape the voyage aboard Sylvia Earle around it: the sailing, the stateroom, the flights from Australia, the nights either side, and the offers we hold for Arctic Cruise guests. One specialist, from the first conversation until you are home.
The fleet
Other ships we sail
Each ship we work with has her own character and her own Arctic. Douglas Mawson is Sylvia Earle’s newer sister; SH Diana and SH Vega are the Scandinavian ships; Ultramarine carries the helicopters.
Learn more
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