Capturing the Moment

  Waking up excited about work is a reality for me. I lead expeditions around the world onboard adventure cruise ships and privately to destinations like Hawaii, Alaska, Antarctica, and Africa. Sharing these wild places with excited guests is an extremely rewarding experience. I constantly see the locations, wildlife, and adventures through their eye....like I'm seeing it for the first time. I feel very lucky to be in this position and I do not take any of it for granted. I've worked many different jobs that have culminated in being able to excel in this career.... teacher, marine biologist, boat captain, naturalist, whale researcher, photographer, lifeguard, guide. Something I heard once as a young man and took to heart was, "If you do something you love long enough, someone will start to pay you for it."   It makes the 14 hour days, the bad weather, the unruly guests, and the last minute contingency plans all worth it. Here are a few pictures from the last couple of

 I've made it back out to the islands, leading trips aboard the small, 34 passenger expedition ship Safari Explorer. We came in to the season with a lot still to be put in place, thanks to Covid. Restrictions for bigger cruise ships were also effecting us, although no one who knows our program would consider us in the same class as large cruise ships. We had to shuffle a few things around and come up with a few contingencies but are on the final hours of our first weeklong trip here in Hawaii.    We started off on the island of Molokai. Contingencies started early with the DOT and DLNR not allowing us to use their docks. So my guide, Wilson, and I flew to Molokai on a small 12 seater and checked into the one hotel on the island, the Hotel Molokai. In typical UnCruise flexibility we did the first two days of the trip based out of the hotel. Not only did the guests do the typical activities, including a very unique cultural immersion in Halawa Valley, waterfall swimming hike, and a p

Quiet nook from a kayak Morning Office View   For the past two weeks I have been leading expedition guiding trips around the San Juan Islands, Deception Pass, and Olympic National Park. The trips are seven days, round trip from Seattle. My base is the beautiful Safari Quest. I like to think of it as the flagship for the UnCruise fleet. She can carry 22 passengers and 10 crew. The crew includes a pastry chef, bartender, steward, hotel manager, executive chef, captain, chief mate, deckhand, engineer, and an expedition leader (that's me). It is an amazing crew and to make things even better we most often have pretty amazing guests.  Rough skinned newt!   We only run the Pacific Northwest trips during the shoulder season. The bulk of the summer sailing season is in Southeast Alaska. Due to the pandemic it had been a couple of years since we've run these PNW trips, but we jumped right back into it. The itinerary is very active, with big hikes almost every day. One comment I often he

  How do I describe the magical feeling you get when spending time with a family of mountain gorillas. It is a bit unnerving how human-like their facial expressions and actions are. They let us get, and stay very close, seemingly undeterred at the daily one hour visit from a small group of humans. The trekking groups are limited to six paying tourist, a guide, and a small entourage of porters. A group of armed trackers spend longer with the gorilla family, tracking their movements through the day and noting their nightly nesting places...making them much easier to find the next morning. The experience is pure magic. Knowing that we are the only tourist they will see all day makes the experience, and the cost of a permit, even more special.  Looking back at Mount Sabyinyo, where we trekked to find the gorillas   The gorillas living in the Virunga mountains were not even known to the international scientific community until 1902. Since then the gorillas have seen their habitat shrink due