Tell us about yourself and your connection to Aurora Expeditions
I am originally from Canada, where I started guiding on a liveaboard sailboat in remote areas of the west coast. I was driving Zodiacs and teaching people about the wildlife in Haida Gwaii and SE Alaska. Eventually this led me to guiding in Antarctica in my “off-season” then immediately after that to the Arctic. Between 2009 and 2013, I took a break from guiding when I sailed from Canada to Australia in a small yacht with my husband (Stephen also works with Aurora). I immigrated to Australia in 2013 and very soon afterwards was in touch with Aurora and started guiding in the polar regions onboard the Polar Pioneer.
Do you remember your very first voyage or moment with Aurora?
My first voyage was over Christmas and New Year on a voyage to South Georgia and Antarctica onboard the Polar Pioneer. The whole voyage was imbued with the spirit of the holidays and everyone on board: guests, E-team and crew were like one big happy family together. I remember dancing to bring in the New Year in the tiny little bar on the ship while we were rocking and rolling across the Scotia Sea on our way towards South Georgia from the Antarctic Peninsula. The ship movement meant that there was no reason for anyone to worry about dancing ability!
Why do you think responsible travel matters now more than ever?
Responsible travel is more important now than ever. To help protect the places we visit, we need to understand them more. We don’t want to just be tourists taking photos, we want to interact with the areas that we travel in. The citizen science program is one way that we help the places that we visit. I love standing out on deck with our guests, counting seabirds in the wild Southern Ocean and knowing that we are producing data that is useful to scientists.
How have you seen Aurora evolve over the years?
While I was not part of the very first team to work with Aurora, I have been around long enough to see the change from a single smaller Russian ship, to now three new state-of-the-art expedition ships. This growth has come with a huge expansion to the expedition team. But the same values are still at the forefront of every voyage. Staying true to expedition-style travel and exploration. Taking people to where they can stretch their limits and see now and wild places is still at the core of our voyages.
