These talks were presented on the Holland America Volendam, during the final stretch of a 133 day Pole-to-Pole cruise. The talks began in Norway on May 10 and ended near Nova Scotia on May 31. I would encourage any readers to look at the last talk first, since I think it contains the most important information. Also, since it was scheduled at 9:00 AM and there wasn’t a reminder announcement a few minutes prior to the talk, very few people showed up. Hence it will be new to most cruisers.

My talks may at first look disordered and confusing – if one didn’t listen to them. Perhaps they appeared such – even listening to them. But my goal was not to entertain, but to present as much information as I could in the 45 minutes allotted. Information that the listener could use for the rest of their life. Most talks began with a review of interesting nature-related things we had seen in the previous port, or during the previous day at sea. Then the main talk content came, followed at the end by a view ahead to what the next port call might offer in the way of nature-related items.

I am adding text to most of the slides in the presentations below – a tedious effort because it is so much easier to speak than write. But I have tried to put enough text in to convey the essence of the ideas I was trying to convey. Perhaps I will record these in the future since it is much easier to listen than to read.

Needless to say, don’t hesitate to explore the rest of our website for interesting or relevant material. And don’t hesitate to send this info to anyone else, not on the cruises’s Facebook page.

TALK 01 INTRODUCTION AND OCEAN LIFE

TALK 02 THE ARCTIC TUNDRA

TALK 03 ISLAND LIFE

TALK 04 ICELAND’S VOLCANOES, GLACIERS AND LANDSCAPES

TALK 05 THE EARTH’S POLAR REGIONS

TALK 06 CLIMATE CHANGE AND CLIMATE MONITORING

TALK 07 CITIZEN SCIENCE

TALK 08 FIELD PHOTOGRAPHY

TALK 09 CURRENT ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES. (A “transition-free” version, easier for comparing successive slides, is here. But note that there are no comments for each slide in this version.)