Shore Landings.

In the Galápagos aboard the Santa Cruz II, a panga — the local name for the Zodiac — took us ashore for our first landing at Las Bachas beach within minutes of boarding: flamingos in the lagoon, blue-footed boobies, frigate birds and Sally Lightfoot crabs before we'd properly unpacked. Later landings put us on the red sands of Rábida, the black volcanic rock of Puerto Egas, and Darwin Bay on Genovesa, where sea lions and nesting gulls carried on as if we weren't there.

In Antarctica aboard the Greg Mortimer, we landed at Port Lockroy and Jougla Point among gentoo penguins, at Danco Island in sun with whales in the bay all day, and at Deception Island's Whalers Bay, where the rusting remains of the old whaling station are still standing — and, upsettingly, still get spray-painted by visitors who shouldn't be touching them at all.

In Southeast Greenland aboard the National Geographic Resolution, landings put us on tundra between fjords for backcountry hikes, logging species that, as far as we could tell, nobody had recorded there before.

In the Scottish Hebrides, most landings were straightforward dry landings onto a dock or path — but St Kilda is never guaranteed. Reaching Hirta depends on the sea state on the day, and standing in the abandoned village street once we finally landed felt like the whole point of expedition cruising in one stop.