National Geographic Venture

National Geographic Venture is the second of the two ships Lindblad ordered new from Nichols Brothers Boat Builders on Whidbey Island, launched in September 2018 and following National Geographic Quest into service by about eighteen months. Structurally the two are the same ship: 239 feet, 44 feet in the beam, 100 guests in 50 cabins on four decks, 52 staff and crew, the same shallow draft and the same American flag. The class is described on her sister’s page, and repeating it here would be padding.

What separates them is the calendar.

The Baja ship

More than a third of Venture’s scheduled sailings work out of Loreto, on the Baja California peninsula, and that is her defining season. The Gulf of California is a shallow, island-scattered, biologically absurd body of water (blue whales in winter, sea lion colonies on the rocks at Los Islotes, desert islands with nothing on them but cardón cactus), and it rewards exactly what this hull does well: get close, anchor in twelve feet of water, put boats and kayaks over the side, and stay put.

Her Baja voyages come in several formats, from an eight-day loop among the whales to an eleven-day run deeper into the Gulf, plus a thirteen-day repositioning that starts in California’s Channel Islands and works south. Quest does not do this. Quest winters in Central America.

Alaska, and then the rivers

The rest of her year is northern. Alaska is her single largest region, fifty sailings out of Juneau and Sitka, the Inside Passage and the longer voyages that run down into the Great Bear Rainforest and the San Juan Islands. Then a small Pacific Northwest block, including departures from Portland for the Columbia River in the fall.

That last item is worth watching. Lindblad’s two oldest American ships, National Geographic Sea Bird and National Geographic Sea Lion, are scheduled to retire in 2027, and the Portland and Pacific Northwest sailings now appearing on the Quest-class schedules are where that work is going. If you have sailed the small old boats on those rivers, the ship is about to get larger.

Trip lengths run from four nights to thirteen, with a week the median, shorter, on the whole, than anything else in the fleet.

Who she suits

People who want Baja properly. A week out of Loreto on this ship is as good as small-ship travel in North America gets, and the whale-watching is done from Zodiacs rather than from a rail six decks up. She also suits families better than most of the fleet, because the Gulf itineraries are warm, short and full of things to get into the water for.

She does not suit anyone who wants a ship as the destination. There is one lounge, one dining room with unassigned tables and single seating, a small fitness center and a sundeck. No balconies to speak of, no spa, no evening program beyond a naturalist and a projector. And the Gulf of California in January is a working expedition, not a beach holiday; the wind blows, the Zodiac rides are wet, and the day starts early.