How did it happen that you became a captain?
I came to the fleet at the age of twenty-seven, which is late by normal standards. Before that I played professional football. I played for the national team when I was young, and later at a good level at home. By that time my body was exhausted – surgeries, recovery, constant strain. I remember that after games my wife had to help me get out of bed because physically I could not do it myself. People often think professional sport means health, but it does not. Any serious sport takes a lot out of the body if you want real results. At some point I understood that I had to change my life.
I had friends who worked on a ship. There was a football tournament between ships, and the captain wanted to win. They kept telling me to join. For about a year I kept saying no. Then I realised I could not go on as I was. So I started to work on that ship. I came to sea because of football, but I stayed because I found a new path there.

What were your first steps on board?
On a passenger ship there are three directions: deck, engine and hotel. I came with good English, so at first I thought maybe hotel would be easier. The captain asked me which way I wanted to go. I said probably hotel. He walked away, then came back and said, “I think you made a mistake.” That was enough. I understood he was right.
So I joined the deck department. My first position was deck utility – lower than an ordinary seaman, really the lowest rank. But I am grateful for that start. You learn the ship from the bottom up, and that matters later.

How did you move from that first position to the captain’s bridge?
After my first contract – it was nine months – I entered the maritime academy. Before that I already had two higher educations: one in power engineering and one in accounting and audit. So in a way it was an unusual combination. Because of my earlier studies I could go straight into the third year and focus on the subjects I had never done before – ship construction, navigation, things like that.
I first stepped onto a ship at twenty-seven. By forty-one I took command, at that stage, of the largest ship of my career – about 80,000 gross tons, almost 290 metres long, around three and a half thousand passengers and a thousand crew. So yes, it was a fast road, but it was built one step at a time.

What did expedition cruising give you that large ships could not?
There is an element of adventure here, and I understand now that it is closer to me than what I did before. On very large ships everything is clear. You arrive, you leave, the schedule is fixed, and to change that schedule something extraordinary has to happen. Here the work is different. When you operate in remote places, where not many people go, there is a certain charm in that.
What I like in Swan Hellenic is that the schedule is built intelligently. The captain is given reserve time. If you need to leave early, avoid a cyclone, wait for weather, you can do it. I have postponed a passage for forty-eight hours just a few days ago. We stayed inside the fjords because outside there were seven-metre seas. We waited, then went out in three metres instead. I will not take the ship where I do not believe she should go. That flexibility is not weakness. It is good seamanship.

People see the scenery and the landings. What do they not see about life on board?
They do not see how much of the ship’s life is about systems, discipline and respect for the environment. Take water as an example. We produce it, mineralise it, then keep it in drinking tanks for at least twenty-four hours because the water needs to rest. Every batch is tested in the laboratory before it goes into use. When guests shower, when laundry is done, when water is used in the galley, it does not simply disappear into the sea. It goes into the treatment plant. There it is cleaned through filters and bacteria, and what comes out is clean water that can safely be returned beyond the legal limit from the coast.
The same applies to ballast water. You cannot just take water in one place and dump it in another. If you do that, you move one ecosystem into another and create huge problems. On this ship the ballast water is filtered and treated with UV, so the biological part is removed. That matters. These things are invisible to guests, but they are part of what responsible expedition shipping really means.

Comfort matters on long passages. What makes SH Vega easier on the sea?
The stabilisers make a big difference. Ours are huge – almost seven square metres each. On my previous ship, which was much bigger and much heavier than Vega, the stabilisers were the same size. Here they are really impressive. They sit about four metres below the waterline and come out only when needed. Each one works independently, reading the ship’s movement and reacting against it.
These ships were designed by people who understood exactly what they were building. They were built to give maximum comfort in places where comfort matters most. In the Drake, for example, that is not a small thing.

Many times a year your ship goes via the Drake Passage, one of the most uncomfortable place if we speak about passengers’ comfort. How do you explain it to passengers?
I always say there is Drake Shake and there is Drake Lake. More often it is Shake than Lake. That is just the reality. So the first rule is “be flexible”, the second rule is “be flexible”, and the third rule is “be flexible” again. If we need to adjust the schedule to reduce the effect of the weather, we do it. Sometimes we move things forward. Sometimes we use a good weather window earlier. Sometimes we cut something later in order to get out safely. Everything there is dynamic. You can look a week ahead, but in twelve hours the weather can turn upside down.
I also tell guests something very simple: waves and wind are the fee you pay to see places that very few people have seen. That is the contract. Not a financial contract – a real one.

What makes a port difficult, even when passengers may not notice anything unusual?
A port can look calm and still be dangerous. One good example is long swell. People often think that if there is no wind, there is no problem. That is not true. You can have almost no wind and still have a long ocean swell moving through the area. The deeper the water, the longer the wave. It can affect a ship at the berth, the gangway, the mooring lines, everything.

With so much technology on board, how much still depends on human judgement?
A great deal. We have very strong backup systems – emergency diesel generator, independent chart systems, multiple stations, everything you would expect on a modern ship. The autopilot also has different modes: track pilot, course mode, heading mode. But none of that removes the need for a person. The system does not recognise danger the way a human being does. Someone still has to watch, decide when to leave one mode, when to go to hand steering, when to put the quartermaster on the wheel.
And then there is traffic. Fishing boats without AIS. Sometimes without lights. Sometimes with nets where you do not expect them. Last year in Brazil we found almost two hundred metres of fishing net caught on our stabiliser. Another time, in a narrow exit, in darkness, a small boat suddenly appeared where it simply should not have been. In moments like that you stop the ship, go astern, sound the whistle, and act. Technology helps. It does not replace seamanship.

What is special about South America from the captain’s point of view?
Latin America is never boring. Every country has its own rules, its own authorities, its own style. In Brazil, for example, you deal with Anvisa, with port health, and you either meet the standards or you do not go in. It is as simple as that.
Then there is the Amazon. We are already looking at schedules years ahead. I have done the Amazon with different ships, so I know it well enough. It is expensive, complicated, and in places very narrow. On another ship I once had only sixty centimetres under the keel. That is not a pleasant feeling. A ship needs water under the propellers and rudders if you want her to answer properly. Without water, she cannot give you what you ask. That is why these routes are so interesting from the bridge – they demand concentration all the time.

Which routes stay with you most strongly?
Antarctica is always special for me. I have been there many times, but it still does not lose its force. To me it feels more unique, more vulnerable, less touched by people. There are other beautiful places, of course, but Antarctica is different.
At the same time, one of the strongest routes I know is the combination of the Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica in one voyage. Then you do not see just one place – you see three different ecosystems, three different worlds. That is very memorable. Some companies fly guests across the Drake to avoid the crossing, but even that has its own problems. Flights are delayed every year. People wait in Punta Arenas for days because of weather. There are no perfect shortcuts in these regions. Rare places remain rare for a reason.

After all these years at sea, what stays with you most?
Probably the feeling that some places still have the power to demand something from you before they show themselves. Today many people want everything to be smooth, predictable and comfortable all the time. But the most remarkable places in the world do not work like that. You have to accept uncertainty, weather, delay, change.
That is why I always tell guests: if there are waves, if there is wind, take it as part of the journey. You accept that in order to see something that few people have seen. And when you understand that, you stop fighting the voyage and start experiencing it properly.