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Whale Watching San Juan Island Crew
Meet Your Whale Watching Naturalists and Captains for San Juan Safaris
Craig Melvin
Whale Watch Captain
Craig's has been with us since 2008. An islander since 2004, Craig came to us with a long history of boating.
He also maintains both of our boats when not driving them.He has been boating since 16 years old and has boated from Mexico to Glacier Bay Alaska.
In a former life, Captain Craig spent 29 years in law enforcement - 8 of those in homicide.
Hobbies: SCUBA diving, operation and repair of boat systems, fixing, building and improving his house, cars and boats and recently added 'ham radio operator to his list.
Craig has some funny stories about trees that fall on his cars and "the cement project" at his home.
One other thing about Craig, he is a stickler for spelling and punctuation. If you find something on this web site, tell me quick before Craig sees it. He also says to tell you " I am a year older than last year".
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Mike Kramer
Whale Watch Captain
Mike's passions are the ocean and the mountains. He spends summers captaining the whale watch boats.
Winters usually find him on snowy mountains skiing or traveling to exotic countries.
He is also an avid sailing and has taught sailing.
Mike is an Emergency Medical Technician. He has been with us since 2009. This past winter he traveled all over Thailand. We were concerned he might not come back. |
Bill Cumming
Whale Watch Captain
Born in Nova Scotia, Canada, he is a true islander, having lived on San Juan Island over 24 years.
Bill has been boating since childhood. He has been on boats his entire life, including sailing, power and commercial fishing boats. He was the primary boat operator for the Sheriff's Office.
His BA is in Criminology. He is the elected Sheriff of San Juan County for 24 years, and in the law and justice field for over here 38 years. When not driving boats, he enjoys his family and a good game of racquet ball.
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Mike Oster
Naturalist
Whale Watch Captain
Mike has found his way to San Juan Safaris after seven years of environmental education and Eco-tourism work.
He grew up outside of Cleveland, OH and graduated with a B.S. in Biology from Elon University in North Carolina. He has worked as Head Educator aboard an 80ft. Schooner in Long Island Sound, Marine Science Instructor for the Catalina Island Marine Institute, and naturalist for Pacific Whale Foundation in Maui.
Mike is SCUBA certified and received his USCG 100 ton Masters license in 2009 which he used to drive boats for Humpback Whale tours in Hawaii.
In the summers Mike has led student expeditions for National Geographic to Dominica, Belize, and Monterey California. In his off time he likes to hike, camp, play music, and be on the water. He is very excited to start a new adventure here on San Juan Island!
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Laura Swoyer
Naturalist
Laura has been fascinated by the ocean for as long as she can remember. It started with summer trips to the frigid NH shore and continued when she moved to RI and received a degree in Marine Biology from Roger Williams U.
A desire to see more of the oceans took her west to Catalina Island, CA, where she spent the next few years as an educator and aquarist at the Catalina Island Marine Institute. The beauty and abundance of wildlife in the Channel Islands solidified her love of being both on and in the ocean.
She has also worked as a naturalist on Maui, and volunteered for a white shark research project in South Africa.
She loves diving, kayaking, hiking, and generally immersing herself in nature.
Laura recently received her 100 ton Master's license and spent last August sailing from Ventura, CA to Hawaii with friends. She is thrilled to finally be in the Pacific Northwest where the forest meets the ocean.
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Serena Neff
Naturalist 
Serena comes to us from Maui where she was working with the Pacific Whale Foundation as an educator, first mate and naturalist.
She has worked with the Ocean Institute in Dana point which involved overnight programs on Catalina Island. Her work has taken her to many locations such as: Laguna Beach, CA., Newport, CA., Holderness, NH., Boston, MA., Bristol, RI., Concord, NH., Coomonderry Lagoon, Australia and more.
With a multitude of interests among them are: sailing, canoeing, kayaking, and Tall ship sailing.
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Alexandra Hill
Naturalist
Alex was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska… far away from any coast! She is not sure how she grew up so far from the water, but at a very young age found herself deeply immersed in marine life visiting grandparents in Hawaii.
She loved the ocean and it's inhabitants as far back as she can remember. Her hobbies involve being outside and/or around the water.
Alex seems up for any adventure and loves trying new things!
She graduated with a B.S. in Animal Science and Biology and spent a winter semester in Maui studying Humpback whales.
After graduating and spending three previous summers as an intern in Massachusetts, she moved to the east coast to continue to study whales with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. While there, she worked as a naturalist with several whale watch companies and focused on humpback photo-identification and behavioral analysis.
She took a move South to work with the Florida Fish and Wildlife in Saint Petersburg, Florida and continued photo-identification research working with manatees.
This year she made the huge move from east coast to west coast and excited about the move.!
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Kirsten Dale
Naturalist
During high school, a Costa Rica sea turtle ecology program solidified Kirsten’s appreciation for the natural world and inspired future explorations of new lands and cultures.
She received her B.A. in Biology and her studies included a semester abroad in Finland. After graduation Kirsten traveled over a year through New Zealand and Australia working odd jobs, her favorite being a lifty for a ski resort.
She got the taste for adventure she sought when, for her first boat experience, she hopped on a crammed catamaran and embarked on a 10-day passage from Fiji to New Zealand.
She is looking forward to her summer with San Juan Safaris.
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Kristen Dominicci
Naturalist
Aloha! Graduated from Hawaii Pacific University with a BS in marine biology Kristen has loved killer whales since she was three years old and killer whales are what first caught her interest in marine biology.
This first love has stuck with her and she expanded to all marine mammals. Her senior seminar class was on a comprehensive project on transient killer whales, resident killer whales, and offshore killer whale populations. |
Pat Devlin
Book Keeper/Office Manager
Oh yes, and sales desk, proof reader, editor, writer, organizer and organized.
Pat has been with San Juan Safaris since 2004. She was originally hired as the book keeper. Then we found out all her other skills and her job just kept expanding. Pat has a long boating history and love of the water having lived and boated in southern and northern California and many other places as well.
She has been a resident of San Juan Island since 2002.
In a previous life Pat was a pharmacist.
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Bill Wright
Naturalist, Owner/Creator of San Juan Safaris
and what is now named Alaska Wildland Adventures back in 1975
In 1993 Bill began offering wildlife tours by kayak at Roche Harbor. 1994 he added Whale Watching.
2002 San Juan Safaris opened up an additional operation in Friday Harbor with both Whale Watching and Kayaking.
He began his career showing people wildlife, teaching the tenents of environmentalism and also proper wildlife viewing ethics - long before the term eco tourism had been coined.
In Alaska, he rafted rivers that were seldom seen by humans.
He is an avid traveler having been to every state in the US, all over British Columbia, to Costa Rica, Africa, New Zealand and Fiji.
Bill is a news junky and is obsessed by what is going on in the world. He enjoys birding, riding his tractor, taking long drives to someplace he has or hasn't been, being around his critter companions and reading adventure books.
Bill can usually be found in the administrative office with a phone on each ear.
He credits some of his success to his wonderful mate. See next photo. |
Colleen Johansen
Naturalist/Owner
Colleen can be found at the appointment desk or behind a computer monitor (updating the web site and answering your emails) at the admin office.
In the past though, she was a kayak guide, and a naturalist on the whale watching boat. Occasionally, she now naturalizes on the boat. Colleen enjoyed The Whale Museum's naturalist class so much; she has taken it four times.
A full time resident of San Juan Island since 1993, she has lived three other states besides Washington State. She has a varied background with music, gemology and retail in her past.
Colleen loves travel and has been to every state in the US, Europe, Brazil, Fiji and more. She says “I can’t travel enough to other countries” and has a bucket list going for more travel.
She enjoys: birding, reading, working out, jazz & classical music, gardening, learning new things, updating skills, using her digital camera capturing staff and spending time with her geese, llamas, 2 bunnies and friends.
She sometimes credits her good life to her husband, but mostly to just expecting life to be good. See Bill's photo above.
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San Juan Safaris, Inc.,
Friday Harbor, WA, USA
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