Every four hours on National Geographic Explorer there is a change in the officers that look after the bridge on the vessel. Each stands on the bridge alongside a colleague who is a watchman, with always two people on the bridge. A route will have been planned by our navigator Joanne and while she is off shift, the other officers will follow the tracks she has laid. This does not mean that things cannot change when she is not on board – ice and unseen rocks may appear in places that were unforeseen. Plans change, and then they may change again!
A day spent in any windy fjord is a tricky thing. Spotting wildlife at a 1km distance is hard even for the more experienced eyes of the crew. It is almost always the watchmen that find the wildlife before any of the expedition team and guests do. They spend their life watching, after all, and we are thankful to them for doing so.
