Sterling’s Blog

Vivian is one of the waiters on our Antarctica ship.  Because she was very nice and helpful, I decided to interview her. 

She works 10 months straight and then goes home and spends 2 months with her family.  During those ten months, she works 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Vivian has one daughter and only gets to see her when she’s home for two months each year. 

All the waiters on the ship are from the Philippines.  Vivian came here from the Philippines because she makes more money here.  She is on this boat in Antarctica from November-March.  She has worked on cruise boats for 12 years.

I think she has a very tough job working long hours away from her daughter.  It must be really boring during off hours because she cannot get off the boat and has to stay in her room.

As an assignment I had to interview someone working on our Antarctica cruise.  I decided to interview the marine mammalogist, Mark Deakos.  On our trip, he was the naturalist that specialized in marine mammals, including whales, dolphins, and seals. 

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Mark has been a marine mammalogist for 12 years but has only been in Antarctica for four weeks.  He has seen about ten species of marine mammals in Antarctica.  He decided to work on this cruise ship because he thinks that Antarctica is an amazing place.    Some of the things he did were to identify whales and dolphins, give lectures, and lead expedition tours.   He will only be working here for 3 trips (6 weeks). 

Mark’s favorite animal in Antarctica is the Leopard Seal.  The rarest species of marine mammal he has ever seen is the North Pacific Right Whale calf.  It was the first calf of that species seen in 100 years!!! 

Mark grew up in Montreal but did not see many marine mammals there.  Now he is living in Hawaii, where he is getting his Ph.D. at the University of Hawaii.  The thing he likes best about being a marine mammalogist is that he gets to be outdoors in nature.  He thinks the best place to see whales is Hawaii, where there are 20 species.