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Please Go Away Travel Podcast
Please Go Away Travel Podcast
Exploring the Ends of the Earth: Lesa Bain on Expedition Travel and Wildlife Adventures
What if your next vacation took you to the ends of the Earth, traversing icy landscapes and encountering wildlife you've only ever seen on TV? Join us on the Please Go Away podcast as we sit down with Lesa Bain from Lindblad Expeditions, who has traveled to all seven continents and has a treasure trove of stories to share. From the origins of expedition travel inspired by Lars-Eric Lindblad in the 1950s to the incredible partnership with National Geographic that enriches each journey, Lesa reveals the magic behind small ship cruising and what makes it so special.
Imagine cross-country skiing over fast ice in Antarctica or encountering a curious leopard seal while a National Geographic photographer captures the moment. Lesa takes us through exhilarating experiences and unexpected challenges, comparing the safety of traversing Antarctic landscapes to navigating Europe’s cobblestone streets. She also emphasizes the importance of sustainability, sharing how Lindblad Expeditions is committed to leaving every place better than they found it. This chapter isn't just about the thrill of the adventure but also about the diverse and passionate community of travelers who embark on these journeys.
Our conversation wouldn’t be complete without transporting you to the mesmerizing worlds of the Antarctic and the Galapagos Islands. Picture the excitement of spotting your first iceberg, the dynamic beauty of the ice, and the rich marine biodiversity. Lesa vividly describes intimate wildlife encounters, such as the lifecycle of penguins and the hunting techniques of killer whales. She also touches on the unique cultural richness of the Arctic, from the Inuit people to the breathtaking fjords of Norway. Whether it’s the spectacle of king penguins in South Georgia or the elusive polar bears and narwhals of the Arctic, this episode celebrates the joy, unpredictability, and transformative power of expedition travel.
Welcome to the Please Go Away podcast. I'm your host, Amanda Klimak, and I'm here to help you plan your travel future today. On today's episode, we're happy to have Lisa Bain from Limblad Expeditions to talk about adventure travel and expedition small ship cruising.
Lesa Bain:Well, and thank you for coming out because I know it was very short notice. But we have found this wonderful little venue and I think we're going to be back pretty quickly. We've already got plans underway. So yeah, my background is in expedition travel. I've been traveling with small ships for about 18 years now, have covered all seven continents in that way of travel and for me it's kind of a passion that stems seven continents in that way of travel and for me it's kind of a passion that stems from the way that we were founded. But I want to kind of talk about this whole genre, what expedition is and how it started. And it started with a really remarkable gentleman by the name of Lars Erik Lindblad who was an explorer back in the 50s and he realized a lot of the places he was going to places like Antarctica, the Amazon, patagonia were suffering habitat loss, wildlife destruction back in the 50s and that was happening because they didn't have a voice and he wanted to figure out a way to give them a voice. So he figured let's take people, educate them, impassion them, so they'll come back as a voice for these places and help us ensure they're there for the next generation. And his son, sven Lindblad, then stepped in and said well, I'm doing safaris in East Africa. Safari is a whole different animal and the way we approach, how you get out and explore, we don't want to just be on ships, that's too passive for us. We want to actually be out in these places. So our ships are really the conduit to get you there. And so that was the very humble beginnings of what today is a whole industry of small ship expedition, and it was founded on that premise of doing a morning and afternoon game drive, getting off the ship, with photographers being with ornithologists, botanists, ethnomusicologists, so you understand what you're seeing, you're not just watching it go by, but you're immersed in it. And so those were really important those early days.
Lesa Bain:And we as a company have a relationship with the National Geographic Society, which is just another beautiful layer, because back in the early days, when Lars-Erik Lindblad was traveling, he would pick the places he was going to based on what was in the pages of the Yellow Magazine. So he would look at it and go, oh my God, that looks so cool, I want to go there, let's go see what's happening. And so he had always wanted to support National Geographic and what they were doing, and the way he did that was to go to them about 30, 20 years ago and say my ships are going to these remarkable places. We see your scientists in the field. Why don't we let them travel with us? And we will be the basis or a platform for them to do their research and we'll help raise funds for you. And so this relationship was built and today is going through. We've just signed up with them to go through to 2040. So it's been extended.
Lesa Bain:But it means we have these remarkable scientists and researchers on our ships and when you're looking at expeditionary travel, you've got to take the fact it's on a ship out of your mind and look at it as truly a safari. And these are the vessels that get you where you want to go, so you can be off them more than you're on them. But it's also having these remarkable men and women, these captains, who are ice class captains. They've done all these work in these places, so safety is paramount class captains. They've done all these work in these places, so safety is paramount. The fact we've been going to Antarctica since 1966, the very first company to ever take guests to Antarctica. It is no safer today than it was in 1966. It's still the same place, right? So you need to be able to understand that you're going with people who understand it. They know how to approach it, to make sure that safety is paramount in everything that you do.
Lesa Bain:But it's being with really cool men and women who are passionate, and one of the things I kind of laugh these days when we started back in the 60s, there was one little expedition company. I think today there's like 22 companies that offer varying degrees of what is known as expedition and everyone will stand up and go. We've got the best expedition team in the world. I kind of find that a little disingenuous. We can't all have the best team, right? I think what you need to look at is do you have the best team for the way you explore? The way we explore is in a very personal level.
Lesa Bain:We want people who will sit down with you at dinner, across the table from you, be in the Zodiacs with you up having early morning coffee at 4am. They're by your side for the entire trip. They're not just there to do a talk at the end of the evening and then disappear. We want people who have the good graces to answer any question, and one of my favorite questions was a little boy up in Canada. We did a whole event and got to the end of it.
Lesa Bain:I thought I'd done this great job at getting them excited about expeditions and they should go and see these amazing animals. And the only question he had for me was do giant tortoises fart? I did not know the answer to that question, so I do now. And so I rang our ship in Galapagos and spoke to Celso and said Celso, I have a little boy who's seven. He wants to know the giant tortoise's fart. And he's like well, funny, you should ask, they eat a lot of roughage? So, yes, they do. So there you go, but it's that kind of person that we're looking for. So are they the best? Maybe not for other people, but for us, for our clients, for the way we want to explore? They are the very best people for us, best people for us, and they have remarkable stories. These are men and women who have traveled around the world. They've done research.
Lesa Bain:Our ethnomusicologist, jacob Edgar, his whole job is just to help people understand the musical roots in the places we go right. So why was that instrument built there? How is that music tied to this place? And to layer that over all the other parts of the exploration that you're on, and it's getting out with really cool equipment. Whenever you're going to these places, like on safari, you want to make sure you can see every aspect of it. You're sitting on a huge living organism. The ocean is alive beneath you. If you do not understand what is happening in that marine biodiversity beneath you, you've missed a huge opportunity. So having ROVs that can go down and come back and bring amazing video footage taking samples of the water around our ship so we can look at the microplastics, how that's affecting wildlife, we can look at all the little animals that are around us on a daily basis and explain to people what they're seeing is really important. Having water level approaches to wildlife is really unique. So zodiacs we introduced zodiacs in the 60s. These little workhorses are like the four-wheel drive in africa right, they get you out to these beaches where possibly no one has ever stepped foot before, but they get you up close to wildlife like this. And then, if you're lucky enough, you can get out into places like antarctica and you've got seals, you've got, you've got wildlife right there.
Lesa Bain:One of our favourite days was this is a 40-foot minke whale. We affectionately call them stinky minkies. If you've ever been near a whale and you've had blow when they blow and you get the water on you okay, that is not water, it's snot Okay on you. Okay, that is not water, it's snot Okay. And that snot is really important because you know what's in that All the information our scientists need to know about how healthy is that whale? Are they about to give birth? Do they have young? So we can now take samples without having to puncture whales. They can now just fly a little petri dish over them when they're blowing, capture some snot and they can do all this research. So there's all this cool stuff that comes from simple things like being this close to a minke whale, but getting out and exploring at all ages.
Lesa Bain:I always am asked so often. Well, you know, we're getting a little older. Can we do what you do? There are less accidents or less mishaps on our ships in Antarctica than when we take clients to Europe. Cobblestone roads seem to be everyone's nemesis. Everyone trips in Europe. Everyone has an accident in Europe. If you fall down in Antarctica, it's soft, white, fluffy snow. There's nothing going to happen to you. So if you can walk a football field.
Lesa Bain:The beauty of exploration is that you can do pretty much anything we do, and there's always different options depending on where you are and how you explore and get out and see it. And one of my favourite things and I'm going to go into Antarctica in a little bit more detail but being able to be on skis, cross-country skiing in Antarctica at the very beginning of the season when it's flat ice, fast ice, and fast ice means it's the ice that is attached to the continent fast. It's over 3,000 or 4,000 feet of water beneath you and you are just gliding over this open white expanse. It is pretty remarkable. We have divers in the water, once again, that marine biodiversity. Having these men and women that can bring back this remarkable imagery and share it with you, the best thing to do is run down to the back of the ship when these guys get out of the water and ask them a question, because their lips are so frozen they can't answer and they just blubber. We do that to our expedition team all the time, but it's having moments like this.
Lesa Bain:We actually had a Nat Geo photographer on board and he was doing research with leopard seals and so we dropped him off and he was actually camping on the flow edge for about a week and we came back to pick him up he was with a leopard seal female. He's in his wetsuit, he's down there doing photography and this female got really upset, not had, she was worried that he was starving. So she would go capture a penguin and she'd go please, eat penguin. She'd throw a live penguin and the penguin would swim off and she got really upset that he wasn't eating. So she then started killing the penguins and bringing them over and floating them in front of him. He still wouldn't touch the penguin. Then she started chewing them up into little pieces and trying to help feed him. She was so stressed that this thing in the water wasn't eating. And so we learned so much about the wildlife around us through these remarkable men and women and the work they're doing. And I don't know if you know, but leopard seals everyone gets them wrong. Yes, they'll eat penguins, but you know they eat mostly plankton and they have these remarkable teeth that look like springs of broccoli and so when they come together they can push the water out and it captures all of the plankton behind it. So they get a crunchy mouthful of plankton. So they're not just big meat eaters, but it's also sharing some really cool color and vibrancy from beneath the oceans in Antarctica, alaska the Arctic Photography.
Lesa Bain:One of the biggest things that Sven and Lars brought to ships was photography. When you go to Africa, what is one of the things you want to do? You want to capture the moments, right. You want to capture the wildlife. You need to be able to do that on expedition as well, but one of the best things these men and women do is tell you when to put your camera down. I think one of the biggest problems we have today when we travel is we live through the lens of our camera, be it our cell phone or our SLR. We get home, we go oh gosh, I wish I'd just sat for five minutes and listened, because the sound of a place is what cements it in your memory, and so it's having these amazing men and women that will say okay, camera's down, phone's off, let's just sit, take in the moment and create that memory.
Lesa Bain:Sustainability, for us, is one of the key things, and for this particular industry, it is one of the real bellwethers. If we're not protecting places we're going to, we really shouldn't be there, right? So we look at this as a way to leave these places better than we found them, and I'll talk about that with Galapagos, because Galapagos is really an amazing win for all of us. When we talk about protecting and returning places to the way they used to be, it's really interesting. We have lots of different folks. It's not an age, it's a psychographic the people who travel with us. They're inquisitive, they want to get out, they want to stand in the penguin poo with us. They want to understand why it's pink. They want to understand all the different wildlife and how that ties in. They want to understand the cultures around them. So it's couples, it's solos, multi-generational families. We have so many multi-gen families that join us.
Lesa Bain:We have a great program called National Geographic Global Explorers and this was designed with National Geographic Education for our under 18-year-old guests, the whole idea being these young kids will come on board. They'll go out with a field educator like Celso. They'll take plankton samples. They'll learn to drive Zodiacs. They'll go out with a field educator like Celso. They'll take plankton samples. They'll learn to drive Zodiacs. They'll figure out what's happening with the microplastics in the water. They'll build glaciers out of ice cream so they understand what the terminal marine is you remember things when you do it, when you build it, when you're a part of it.
Lesa Bain:We go all over the world. So if you're looking at expedition small ship, there's probably a good chance of all the companies that do it, but they all go to lots of different places. One of the big differentiators for us is size, so I did want to kind of call that out. Our biggest ship is 148 guests, so think intimacy of scale. This is about travelling in a small community. Our smallest ship is 28 guests. On the Amazon I always kind of equate her a little bit to the African queen, but she doesn't sink at the end of every journey that we go on. But it's that feel. You're way up in the Pekai Samaria reserve, the jungle is wrapped around you, you've got amazing bird life. But the Amazon is really more about the people, the small villages. It's the culture along the edge of the river.
Lesa Bain:The way we approach places like Antarctica and I want to talk about Antarctica is who here has been to Antarctica? I know you two have yep. So Antarctica is a four-month season. It is kind of end of October through to the end of February, but depending when you go it's going to be different. Early season is about that white ice. It is about these expansive regions as you get down there. But you're going to fly into this little town called Ushuaia, which is at the very end of the planet, and this is where you're going to board your ship to go across or you may fly down. There's options you can fly to Antarctica or you can sail. We do both. But when you cross that Drake Passage you'll run in the footsteps of Scott and Shackleton and Amundsen. You are tracking across this expanse of water that's only about 600 nautical miles and it's learning that, this confluence of two oceans coming together and the upswelling of nutrients and the wildlife that feeds on that, and you see your first iceberg and then you see your first penguin, you see your first seal, and then you see these huge mountains rise up out of the ocean and it's this real feeling of arrival and presence which I think is so important, particularly for Antarctica. So this is as you're coming into the peninsula and you start to see these mountains rise up, it's really interesting.
Lesa Bain:Humans are the most competitive thing on the planet, right? So we used to have this little competition whoever saw the first iceberg, and we'd do the whole talk about what's an iceberg, what's a growler. You know the different sizes. And it was for a bottle of wine. Now I'm going to preface this by saying beverages are included on our ships, so getting a free bottle of wine, not really a biggie, um, and we would be sitting and you'd see this first little chunk of ice go by and honestly it was probably the size of this table and some guy goes, iceberg jumps up. Every man in the dining room jumps out of the table. They all ran because it had to be the first person to get to the captain in the bridge and all the women just looked at the table and the free beverages on the table, looked back at where the men disappeared out the door and just continued to eat. But they do love their little bit of competition. So we had a lot of fun.
Lesa Bain:But the whole idea is, when you get down this fast ice early in the season, being able to see what's happening beneath us. But it is the ice that most people don't realise is one of the most remarkable things of Antarctica. It's like a gallery of art that changes every day. Actually, it changes every hour because it depends on the light that you're seeing it from the sunsets the morning. It's quite spectacular. But we are off every day, weather permitting, on the ice being able to go hiking.
Lesa Bain:Now in Antarctica it's interesting you have a maximum of 100 people that can be on the ice at any one time and that is a part of the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators guidelines and that's to help keep the numbers down. And so we're out on our zodiacs. We're interacting with wildlife, getting the chance. We were down there last year. We had the first time we'd seen minke whales come up close to the ships in about five years and we had a pod of what amount about six minke whales and they decided to play with us and they just swam around us, they threw water at us, they rolled over, they vocalized. That is one of those moments you cannot say on any printed material this is gonna happen. That's just one of those moments that you take advantage of and that's what Antarctica is all about. Oh, am I going backwards? So? Different penguin species we're going to see down there include chinstraps, adelies, gentus.
Lesa Bain:We will often get the question about emperor penguins. Emperors actually breed during the winter. They give birth during the winter season. That's why you always see them huddled up. So we don't see huge numbers, but we do see small groupings of them out on the flow ice, if we're lucky as we head over to the wet or sea, but seeing penguins. So once you get into December, penguins can't nest on ice. Penguins nest on rocks and pebbles and so they need the tops of those little mounds to start to melt. So as you get into early December they're starting to be more frenetic and lay their first eggs. You're starting to be able to see them fighting with each other and mating and then, as you get towards the end of December, they're then starting to have their young being born. As you head towards the end of season, into February, that's when you're going to see a lot more whales, because the whales start to mass for their migration back and so you'll start to see bigger numbers. So, depending on when you go, you need to pick the time. If you want to see baby penguins, end of December, early January, if you have a feather allergy, don't go at the end of January, early February, because they're all molting and there's just feathers everywhere.
Lesa Bain:But these are the kind of moments, right, and it's realizing that on an expedition there is no true agenda we can say to you the night before this is our plan, we're going to go here, this is the goal. We wake up in the morning and you have the opportunity to have our divers bring some remarkable footage back up and they say we're going to go over here because we saw a pod of killer whales and they're hunting and we will spend two hours on the top deck. We actually have a seal called Kevin that became quite famous. We were coming back out of the peninsula and we saw a pod of killer whales, wave hunting. I don't know if you know what wave hunting is, but they come together and they proactively will swim towards a night's float of ice and create a wave that pushes the seal off. And so we were at dinner. They called off dinner. Everyone went up to the top deck with our team and they were up there for over two hours watching the seal, which everyone affectionately called Kevin. It's a really bad idea to give an animal a name when it's being hunted for dinner, but anyway. So Kevin was sitting on the ice, he'd get washed off, he'd get back on. Kevin actually got away and it became a pretty famous video. But the entire ship dinner you can eat at any time. It was about that one experience that was life-changing and having that chance.
Lesa Bain:We all also go to South Georgia. We go to see the amazing penguins. These are king penguins in South Georgia, but more the history this is where Shackleton is buried. So it's having those historians that can talk you through what that type of life was like when they were heading down there in these little wooden boats. We're in these amazing ships, but just the wildlife in South Georgia. It is the Serengeti of the Southern Ocean. So if you want to think about sheer numbers, 100,000 king penguins on a beach, elephant seals, albatross overhead. It is a lot of noise, some great smells, but pretty remarkable. And we always do the polar plunge as Amanda and Gary contestant to that. But for us it is about finding the joy in every moment of what you're doing down in Antarctica.
Lesa Bain:So I did kind of want to touch on the Galapagos Islands. Who's been to the Galapagos Anyone? So the Galapagos is one of the beautiful stories on how we can reverse human impact on a place. So if you looked at the Galapagos Islands back in the 40s and 50s, there were a lot of non-endemic species. There were goats and pigs and donkeys and those had all been dropped off by the Spanish as they came back through there. And so they would come through and go oh giant tortoises, that's fresh meat on the boat. They can survive nearly two years without any food or water. We'll just dump all of the goats and pigs and donkeys that need lots of fresh water and food on the island. So it was a double whammy. They took breeding stock and then they left. All these non-endemic species with crushed eggs ate all the food.
Lesa Bain:And so when Lars Erik Lindblad went there, he was always excited about Charles Darwin and what he had accomplished and all the samples he'd taken and the work they did. But he realized that there was something that had to be done with all of these non-endemic species. So they did some really cool things. One of them was the Judas goat program, and the Judas goat program was they went out and they collected a handful of nice little goats. They brought them back in, they fed them, they loved on them, and then they set them free and the goats went out and went oh my gosh, there's great food over here, and they would bring all the other goats back. Well then, all the other goats didn't get to enjoy the food. They were kind of got rid of and the Judas goats would go back out and bring more goats back in, and so now we've nearly removed every goat from the Galapagos. Same with wild pigs, same with donkeys. What does that mean? That means the giant tortoises can lay eggs. They're not crushed. There's food for them.
Lesa Bain:So if you take a child to Galapagos, you can actually look at them and say this is an example of how, as human beings, we can reverse the damage we've created. Because how often do we hear stories of gloom and doom about wildlife? Right, it is so brilliant to be able to say we can reverse this if we approach it the right way, and the Galapagos is a really good example of that. And if you've not been, this is about proximity to wildlife. That is truly remarkable. You are what, paul, this far from a blue-footed booby, this far from a seal. When you're in the water, you'll have seals come up to you, this close to swim with you. It is about a total lack of concern and fear about you. They're as inquisitive and as interested in if you're into bird life. There's a great bird down there, it's a mockingbird, and we had a woman who had her huge zoom lens. She's there. She's trying to get a photo of a mockingbird over on this branch. We were all getting great photos because there was one perched on the end of her zoom lens. So you do not need a big camera in Galapagos, you can nearly survive with a cell phone. The wildlife is just so remarkable and it is both above and below the water.
Lesa Bain:One of the cool things about Galapagos is how easy it is to snorkel and get in the water. What people don't realize is how cold it is. The Galapagos is fed by very deep cold tides. Right, you've got the Humboldt Current and so deep cold. That's why we can have penguins there. You can't have penguins if the water's too warm, so you've got to wear a wetsuit. But when you're in the water the sharks, the seals, the penguins just the fish life here is just remarkable and these guys are just unbelievable to swim with Giant tortoises in the highlands.
Lesa Bain:Once again, there's two seasons in the Galapagos. It is on the equator, so there is not a bad time to go any time of year. But if there's a particular animal you want to see, like baby blue-footed boobies on the nest, you want to be there around May. If you want to see frigate birds on the nest, more like November. Giant tortoises you're going to see any time of year. Sometimes it's a little bit more misty and green. They're going to be further out, when it's dry and hot. They're up underneath the scrub. So talk to your travel advisor because they'll be able to say, okay, this is the time that's going to best suit what you want to see.
Lesa Bain:Okay, and expeditionary travel, like safari, is an opportunity to see wildlife. It is not animatronic. It's not going to pop up on iceberg number four at three o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon. We can't promise you you'll see polar bear in the Arctic, but we will do everything in our power to share these remarkable animals with you. And the Arctic is one of the really cool places because people will go. I want to go to the Arctic and the Arctic is one of the really cool places because people will go. I want to go to the Arctic and then I'll just sit there and be quiet and go where.
Lesa Bain:The Arctic is a lot of different places. It's over 7 million square miles, okay. So when you look at the Arctic, you're talking Greenland, svalbard, the coast of Norway, the northwest part of Canada, all the way back around. There's a whole heap of different experiences in the Arctic, ranging from anything from cultural to wildlife, and then some that are a little bit of each, and so for us, it's trying to figure out what is it that you want to see? Because if it's polar bear, we want to get you up to Svalbard, or to the mouth of the Northwest Passage, up around Baffin Island, up into the top of Greenland. If it's Narwhal, there's a couple of very specific spots we might see them, and Narwhal are being pushed further and further up because as the ice starts to recede, that's what they can hide under from the killer whales. So you know we're seeing less and less of them, but it is an amazing place to get out into some of the most remote regions and meet the people.
Lesa Bain:The Inuit people learn about the Tule people that were way up in the Ellesmere Island region of the Arctic, and bird life is one of the best places. If you're a bird life birder, if you're an ornithologist, it is hard not to get a great photo of birds and then polar bear. If you're an ornithologist, it is hard not to get a great photo of birds and then polar bear. The ice is receding in the Arctic, and so what we have found is that the season has become a lot shorter and the rules in place now are really quite remarkable. You cannot get closer than 500 metres to a bear. For good reason, because if you get too close, the bears run away. They use up their very important fat reserves to get away from you when they should be holding on to that right to go hunting. And so the rules and regulations they're in place for a reason. So whenever you're traveling anywhere in the world, you should be grateful for those that they're protecting what you're going to see, and we live very strictly by those rules and regulations.
Lesa Bain:Walrus, toothwalkers, we love these guys. We see them up around Svalbard along the coasts of the top of Canada and the amazing fjords along the coast of Norway are absolutely spectacular. Norway really is about the people and the culture and the history of that region, but the bears up in Svalbard are remarkable. We this morning and anyone who wants to see it. They're on my cell phone. I was getting photos from our expedition leader, javier, who is in Svalbard today, and they had five bears this morning before breakfast. Can't promise that every time. Sometimes we see two bears on an entire trip, but to see that many bears is really exciting at this time of the season. So they were jumping up and down this morning with everyone on the ship, but lots of whales up here too. So now you're in the season of getting up and you've got humpbacks, minke whales, a whole variety of different smaller whale species.
Lesa Bain:If you're into birding, for the puffin, anyone got an idea of how many fish a puffin can fit in its beak? Any thoughts About 36. That's the most we've counted with a puffin. It's a lot of fish, right? They're the cutest little birds. If anyone's a Star Wars fan, you know in the latest Star Wars movies where they've got those little birds. If anyone's a Star Wars fan, you know in the the latest Star Wars movies where they've got those little birds. Um, uh, what island is? The Skellig Islands. Those were all puffins that were living on the island and they had to, with AI, change them so they didn't like look like puffins. Those are real birds with different faces because the island is covered in them.
Lesa Bain:So when they were doing filming all those, those little puffins, but Iceland being able to do a full circumnavigation of Iceland, being able to get out to see the waterfalls, to understand the fishing industry in this place to understand that it sits right on that fault line and you can stand there and look at how that fault runs down the centre of the country. It is really remarkable. And Iceland, for its people, and the geothermal energy. I mean you go into one of their geothermal power stations, it's like going into an Ikea, it's spotless, but to understand how they can power an entire nation. So it's the depth of understanding, all the different areas and that music component.
Lesa Bain:And I did want to just touch on one last thing before I finish. But we do Alaska. And Alaska for Americans is such a big destination Everyone thinks of it on a big ship. So see these two big ships here in Juneau. You see the tiny little ship in between them that looks like it might be the tender. That's our ship. That's the size we do in Alaska. Because for us Alaska is getting out into these little narrow waterways, being up against the glacier, not having to worry about getting out of the national park because you've got to open up your casino on board. It is about sitting and taking it in. It is about walking in the tall grass in the footsteps of the grizzly bears. It is about seeing where they're digging along the coast, being able to get that boat 100 metres off the shore and trace a bear as he's hunting for clams along the water's edge. But it is a remarkable place and I think more Americans particularly need to see Alaska for Alaska's sake, not for the towns and for the shopping that you can do up there.
Lesa Bain:And you know, we actually were with a woman five years ago now and her whole PhD is in moss and lichen. People actually will do a PhD in moss and lichen and we had her as one of our expedition team members. And so we're out and we're looking for bear and there's eagle and we're all excited about big animals. And she's like I need you all to get down on your hands and knees and we're like what? There are so many little plants in the ground beneath us in Alaska and a lot of them are having a they're meat eating. So lots of little pitcher plants that live on mosquitoes and bugs, and so to get down and see this amazing array of small plants beneath our feet and little orchids that are so tiny they're nearly like a pinhead, and so she was able to open up that whole world to us. It was the best photo of the week was all these people on their hands and knees and from the back it was just. Everyone was down on the ground. But it was remarkable because how often do we walk over things and we don't understand what's beneath our feet? And I think that was a really good lesson for all of us to understand it's getting down and understanding every aspect of the places you're exploring. So from there we do.
Lesa Bain:Baja whales, the grey whales of Magdalena Bay. The really cool thing down here is some of these older females that are coming here to give birth to their young still have the signs of being harpooned. So these are whales that show visible signs that they were hunted, are still prepared to bring their young to the edge of the boats to interact with us. That's a pretty cool experience when they're pushing their babies up to interact with you from Costa Rica all the way through places like Egypt, the Amazon, the Mekong. So for us it's opening your eyes to some places that maybe you haven't seen before, but doing it at a level that we hope you'll come back and want to protect it as much as we do. So there you go, thank you.
Amanda Klimak:Thank you for tuning in to the Please Go Away podcast. If you would like more information on today's episode and if you'd like to begin your travel plan today, visit us online at www. pleasegoawaycom or email us at info@ pleasegoawaycom.