Onze vriendelijke en behulpzame collega's zijn u graag van dienst. Ze kunnen alle relevante vragen over onze reizen, de bestemmingen en de schepen van Oceanwide Expeditions beantwoorden. Ze werken allemaal reeds vele jaren met veel enthousiasme voor Oceanwide Expeditions en hebben ook allemaal één of meerdere expeditie reizen naar het Noordpoolgebied en Antarctica meegemaakt, waardoor ze de poolgebieden uit eerste hand kennen.
For as long as Sara can remember, she has had a passion for travel and for finding the wildest and most remote places on Earth.
When she was only 10, she sold her favorite pink bicycle to start her travel fund.
Every birthday and Christmas, she added more to the kitty until finally, at age 18, she realized her dream of diving the Great Barrier Reef! At that moment, the travel addict was born.
Ever since, Sara has been traveling the globe in search of wild and remote places.
She has also spent many months volunteering on wildlife conservation projects to help some of our most iconic and endangered species.
Sara’s love of wildlife and the outdoors has taken her to all seven continents.
She has traveled extensively in the polar regions, including the Antarctic Peninsula, the Falklands, South Georgia, Spitsbergen, Greenland, Iceland, Baffin Island, and the Canadian High Arctic.
Back home in the UK, Sara used her knowledge to work as a polar specialist for several years, but in 2016 she joined Oceanwide Expeditions, trading life on land for a life at sea.
Sara is a keen wildlife photographer, and when she is not in the polar regions, she enjoys working as a photographic guide in Botswana, specifically the beautiful Chobe River and Okavango Delta.
Since his first vacation to Norway in 1996, Christian Engelke has suffered from “Scandinavia fever.” Since then he has been exploring Norway, Sweden, and Greenland by foot, skis, and kayak.
Ali Liddle grew up in the north of England where, after leaving school, she qualified as a primary school teacher.
Henrik is an experienced dive leader, rebreather instructor trainer, and one of the first dive masters to bring tourists diving in Antarctica.
Henrik has been diving for over 25 years and teaches all levels of recreational and technical diving up to Advanced Trimix CCR.
He runs the IART (International Association of Rebreather Trainers) Regional Office for Northern Europe and is a member of the IART Board of Advisors.
Henrik is a keen wreck diver and has been involved in deep-wreck expeditions all over the world. Some of the interesting wrecks he has visited are the WW2 disasters General von Steuben and Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic as well as the HMS Victoria ("the vertical wreck") at 145 meters (475 feet) off the Lebanese coast.
His interest in both the ocean and space has engaged him in projects with the European Space Agency (Mars500 Project) and SeaSpace Exploration and Research Society (Project Poseidon), among others.
He has a military background, having served in peace keeping and enforcing missions in the Middle East and former Yugoslavia.
He has been leading dive expeditions in Antarctica and the Arctic for almost 20 years in remote and challenging waters, many of which have never been dived before.
Henrik holds an M.Sc. Degree in Electrical Engineering and works in the automotive industry when not traveling the polar regions.
He has lived and worked in Tokyo for two years but currently lives in India with his wife, three teenage daughters, and five-year-old son.
Michael began diving in 1980, training with the Royal Navy in Portsmouth Harbour.
Ernesto Barria was born in Santiago, Chile, into a family with strong bonds to the sea: His father, grandfather, and several uncles all share a love of the ocean.
A beach guard by the age of 16, Ernesto’s favorite sport when he was young was swimming. When he finished high school, he moved to Puerto Montt, one of the most important ports in Chile. There he started his studies to become a merchant marine officer.
By his graduation in 1991, he’d already begun to sail on different vessels around Puerto Montt.
Ernesto became first officer of Antarctic Dream in 2005, beginning by navigating in Antarctica and later the Arctic. In 2011 he obtained the rank of captain, and in 2015 he was chosen as the best officer of the Chilean merchant navy.
Ernesto became a captain for Oceanwide Expeditions on Ortelius in 2013.
When he’s not working, Ernesto loves to travel around Chile with his family. He enjoys scuba diving, swimming, cycling, and photography, which has become his favorite hobby.
Arthur Yakovlev was born in Petrozavodsk, the capital and largest city of the Republic of Karelia, in northwestern Russia.
Evgeny Levakov was born in a small village not far from Nerekhta, an ancient Russian town in the Kostroma region. The closest water to his village was a 15,000 square-meter pond.
