Undersea Specialists and Divemasters

Undersea

Undersea Specialists

The video came into focus as the ship’s lounge. Rapt guests were glued to the HD monitors mounted around the room.

“We’re only about 30 feet deep here,” undersea specialist Alyssa Adler’s voice came over the lounges speakers. “Let me turn on my lights so you can see the colors, there’s so much sediment in the water that you lose colors just a few feet below the surface.”

The lights came on and a bright red crab scurried across the seafloor. A yellow sea star that had to be two feet across clung to gray rocks. There were purple corals, swaying kelp, and a sea lion popped into the picture to get a look at Alyssa, or perhaps play in the air bubbles she was exhaling.

This brightly colored, vibrant undersea wasn’t in the tropics—these guests were aboard National Geographic Quest in Alaska.

Lindblad Expeditions is deeply committed to the undersea, which is why nearly every expedition aboard the National Geographic fleet sails with a specialist who dives to capture photos and video of the benthic world to share with guests.

In the tropics, where the water is warm and the undersea wonders are well known, the undersea specialists also serve as a divemasters to help certified guests scuba dive to get a firsthand view. And in the tropics each ship sails with snorkeling gear for all guests aboard. When guests choose not to snorkel or dive, they may join the undersea specialist for a cruise aboard a glass-bottom Zodiac to get a glimpse of the life that lies beneath. In this case the undersea specialist can offer a live voiceover to illuminate all that is seen.

Polar regions are far from a cold, lifeless stretch, the seas of Antarctica and the Arctic are surprisingly rich and colorful environments filled with astonishing life forms. Guests marvel at the unexpected wonders and the thought-provoking talks and conversations they inspire. In these regions the undersea specialist has another tool at their disposal to explore—an ROV capable of diving up to 1,000 feet deep to see places never before seen by humans. In Norway, the undersea specialist even discovered a cold-water coral previously unknown to scientists.

The video came into focus as the ship’s lounge. Rapt guests were glued to the HD monitors mounted around the room. ...

Undersea Specialist

Chris Cook

A self confessed “animal nerd,” Chris falls under many titles: marine biologist, marine interpreter, dive master, science communicator, and naturalist. Chris was lucky enough to grow up on the East Coast of Australia, where there are no shortage of different coastal environments to explore. While growing up, his friends would be surfing while he would be under the waves, snorkel and mask on looking for fish and all the weird and wonderful creatures he couldn’t get enough of. This love of the ocean lead to him completing a Bachelor of Science in 2005. His passion for the ocean and connecting people with its inhabitants landed him in various roles in different zoos and aquariums, but it was the "wild" that was always Chris’s true calling. After working as a whale watching tour guide off the West Coast of Canada and moving back to Australia to work on the Great Barrier Reef, Chris never looked back. Since 2009 Chris’s specialty has been giving presentations on and taking people out to tropical environments, in particular to different parts of the Great Barrier Reef region. In recent years Chris has spent more time living on tropical islands or on ships cruising up and down the reef than on land. Chris’s passion for photography, nature’s creatures, and scuba diving has taken him from diving in the snow in Canada one week to diving in Mexico the next. He has followed his passion to develop his photography and interpretative skills through out Southeast Asia, all along the East Coast of Australia and to the magical Kimberley region off the west coast. The only passions of Chris’s not mentioned are reptiles, birds, insects, dogs, the entire macro world, and of course talking about all of the above over good coffee!

Undersea Specialist

Shaylyn Potter

Shaylyn was born and raised in small-town Oregon, which she credits for her unwavering love and respect for the natural world. Her passion for the outdoors and exploration began at a young age, and she spent her childhood taking full advantage of what Oregon had to offer—waterskiing, snowboarding, hiking, and camping. While studying abroad at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland, Australia in 2008, Shaylyn began scuba diving—a passion that unexpectedly shaped her career path. With academics following suit to her passion, she earned a Bachelor of Science in marine biology and a minor in chemistry from Oregon State University. Shaylyn’s insatiable curiosity has encouraged her to explore many underwater environments and travel to all 7 continents. Though she loves all sea critters, some of her favorites include: octopuses, nudibranchs (especially the Glaucus atlanticus), and plankton. Shaylyn’s focus in marine science is using photography education to increase public interest in marine knowledge and conservation. She hopes to spread her passion for our marvelously rich and important oceanic life and create new ocean advocates in our society. Shaylyn would like to encourage you to ditch your single-use plastic items and join her in using more sustainable options in your day-to-day lives (who needs straws, anyway?!). To see more of her work, follow her on Facebook and Instagram:Save.Our.Plankton

Undersea Specialist

James Hyde

James is a home-grown, free-range Pacific Northwest outdoorsmen. Born in Seattle and reared nearby on Vashon Island, he grew up in and surrounded by the Salish Sea. James has saltwater in his veins, but would be quick to point out we all do, echoing Carl Safina " We are, in a sense, soft vessels of seawater." Born with the travel bug, James was fortunate enough to spend time on four continents before graduating college. During his studies at Western Washington University's Huxley College of the Environment, James went to Australia and visited the Great Barrier Reef. He was never the same. A lifetime of playing in the productive, but opaque green water of the Northwest had offered him little firsthand experience of the creatures below its depths, but with a clear view of the colorful dramas playing out across the bottom of the tropical Pacific, he was hooked. Scuba diving and underwater ecology were solidified as his passion and after college, it took him to a dive shop in Seattle fixing gear, tidepooling with local middle school students, and generally making a spectacle of himself in the surf. Then unaware of expedition travel, James longed to blend his love for travel, conservation, and the marine environment. After a tip-off (and a reference from a childhood friend he joined the Lindblad Expeditions' team in 2016 as a Dive Buddy. Working across the fleet as a Naturalist and Expedition Diver, James learned all he could about the ecosystems of the beautiful and remote places our ships visit. Finally becoming an Undersea Specialist, he continues to be fascinated by the Ocean and all that is in it. He hopes to inspire conservation of the beautiful and unusual ecosystems that flourish in protected waters. Additionally, he hopes to further the contributions Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic make to the scientific community by engaging in citizen science projects, monitoring for ocean plastics in remote locations, and being involved with other partnerships from Universities, to Research Institutes, to conservation groups worldwide.

Undersea Specialist

Christine West

Christine was fortunate to grow up in the Pacific Northwest on the shores of the Puget Sound. After graduating from the University of Washington, she decided to pursue her love of the ocean and exploration. Her passion for marine biology has inspired her through over 4,000 scuba dives around the globe in temperate and cold-water conditions, as well as snorkeling and freediving in extraordinary habitats such as in river beds with spawning salmon, in recently de-glaciated bays and lagoons filled with ice and glacial silt and in deep blue water with large marine animals including humpback whales, hammerhead sharks and pilot whales. Christine is now a USCG certified 100-ton Captain and has traveled internationally full-time as a naturalist, underwater videographer and photographer, expedition leader, educator, PADI Scuba Diving Instructor and Divemaster for over a decade. Since 2013, Christine has spent her summers working as a naturalist in several regions in Alaska including the Kenai Peninsula, the Inside Passage, Ketchikan and Denali National Park. Her experiences guiding in remote regions around the state have taken her hiking through lush riparian forests, kayaking alongside orca whales and canoeing through ice chunks near calving glaciers. She has also enjoyed working as an in-water guide educating about echinoderms and other invertebrates in the kelp forests of Southeast Alaska. Christine’s interest in travel and wildlife has taken her to work above and below water in over 30 countries, spending significant amounts of time in Alaska, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Mexico, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam and several countries in the Caribbean.

Undersea Specialist

Adam Maire

Naturalist, underwater videographer, captain, and historian, Adam Maire is dedicated to exploring around the globe with a goal of researching, documenting, and teaching others about the beauty, the power and the importance of the earth’s wild places. With degrees in animal science, history and a Scuba Diving Instructor certification, he is passionate about finding extraordinary ways to help others understand the links between the worlds that exist both above and below the surface of the ocean. As a temperate and cold-water diver, he is able to capture video and images of rarely seen marine life to create real connections with the underwater world. Growing up working outside on a cattle ranch in Nebraska, Adam’s love for nature started early in life. Through college he continued to learn about the natural world and sought out jobs that aided in his thirst for knowledge. After college, he joined the US Army and afterward began working around the world as a naturalist guide. Adam’s interests have taken him on great adventures in remote locations, spending several years as a backcountry expedition guide in Alaska, leading multi-day whitewater rafting, hiking and kayaking adventures—even scuba diving in glacially-fed lagoons with harbor seals and sea otters. He has enjoyed a vast array of incredible experiences from leading horseback wildlife tours through the jungles of Nicaragua observing howler monkeys and sloths to teaching scuba diving around isolated islands in South East Asia. In 2012, Adam made the Big Island of Hawaii his home, one of his favorite places to observe and photograph marine life such as coastal manta rays, pilot whales, humpback whales and tiger sharks. Pursuing his deep interest in marine biology, Adam earned his US Coast Guard Captain’s license in 2015. Being a Captain has enabled him to spend more time in and on the water, allowing better opportunities to understand and research the marine environment.

Undersea Specialist

Kelly Ferron

Growing up in Washington, Kelly has always felt connected to nature and the outdoors. With the Puget Sound and Cascade Range in her backyard, it came as no surprise that she decided to study environmental science, graduating from Santa Clara University with a B.Sc. in environmental science and Spanish studies. Her studies led her to a life of science travel, taking natural history courses in Baja and conducting research at a field station in Costa Rica. She later received her master’s degree in coastal and marine resource management from University of California- Santa Barbara where she researched the impacts of ocean acidification on marine protected areas and taught undergraduate biology and ecology courses. After completing her master’s, Kelly was a Lead Science Communication Fellow with the Ocean Exploration Trust and worked aboard the E/V Nautilus , a research vessel that uses remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to explore the deep sea. Through her experience as a sea kayak expedition guide and coastal policymaker working to prevent nutrient pollution and ocean acidification, and her adventures scuba diving and exploring new places, Kelly has found the best way to inspire conservation is by finding ways for people to connect with nature and with each other.

Undersea Specialist

Carlos Navarro

Carlos J. Navarro is a biochemist specializing in marine biology, a M. Sc. in Environmental Management and a freelance wildlife photographer/author. Carlos has spent most of the last 30 years living along the shores of the Sea of Cortez and participating in numerous scientific, conservation and environmental education projects on the vaquita, marine invertebrates, sea birds, great white sharks, baleen whales, jaguars and crocodiles. Carlos’ six years of jaguar research provided the basis of ONCA MAYA, a non-profit organization dedicated to jaguar conservation based in Cancun, of which he is a founding member and still serves as a scientific advisor. He loves being underwater, either free-diving or using SCUBA gear and have had the chance to explore the underwater realms of Alaska, Mexico, Svalbard, the trans-Atlantic ridge islands, the Caribbean and both coasts of South America from Panama to Chile and Brazil to Argentina. As a wildlife photographer and author of numerous scientific and popular publications, he tries to share his deep passion and love of nature with the general public. Carlos is very interested in all kinds of wild creatures, particularly top predators; he first traveled to Alaska many years ago to photograph brown and grizzly bears in Katmai and Denali National Parks and returns to the Great State every year for some more ursine encounters. His photographs have been published by National Geographic, BBC, Wildlife Conservation, Reptilia, Especies, Cuartoscuro and many more Mexican and international magazines and books. His first book, Oleada de Vida, is a photographic essay about the Sea of Cortez, whereas his second, El Oso Negro en el Noreste de México , explains the life history of the poorly known but abundant black bears in Mexico’s northeast. He is currently working on a couple of new book projects, one about the natural history, cultural significance and conservation of the jaguar, and the other one about overfishing in the Sea of Cortez. Besides his loved Baja California, Carlos has traveled with Lindblad/National Geographic to the high Arctic of Svalbard, Iceland, Alaska, Antarctica and the Falklands, South Georgia, Azores, Madeira, Canaries, Cape Verde and Easter islands, both Western and Eastern coasts of South America, the Galápagos, Cuba and the Amazon.

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Undersea