Hello! Does anyone have experience logging iNat observations while on commercial cruise ships (particularly on polar cruises)? I am writing my Master thesis at Wageningen University about how citizen science intersects with the polar cruise tourism industry. Would love to get in touch with folks to learn more about why you do citizen science on cruises, and how the experience was for you! It would be really helpful to my project. I can be contacted at: megan.horsthuis@wur.nl or you can drop a comment about what motivated you to iNat on the cruise, whether it was encouraged by expedition staff, or whether it was embedded into the cruise itinerary. Thanks!!
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I don’t have a response to your specific question, but maybe a way to gather observations would be to create a project to put them all together.
I think some similar projects exist, e.g. “birds on boats”
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I reckon that the majority of iNaturalist observations from South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are from tourists (and tour leaders) on cruises, with a smaller number from scientists visiting the region. The leading account in terms of observations is an account associated with one of the tour companies.
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Also Tristan Da Cunha and Marion and Gough Islands - altho that will include scientists and residents.
Islands South of New Zealand?
Antarctica?
Lindblad 2017-2021 so they didn’t last.
You can also search Projects for ‘polar’ and even more projects for ‘cruise’
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One birder I follow was submitting a lot of observations from Antarctica and Chile this winter, I think he was a bird guide for a cruise and a couple other members may have been using iNat as well. This is just from the observations in my feed, I can message you his profile if you want to try contacting him.
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I know for me atleast i just use it where ever i happen to be so if i take a photo while im on vaction im going to upload it.
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I work as expedition staff on small expedition cruises quite often. Now that we have faster internet on board, it’s becoming quite practical to post iNaturalist observations. Sometimes I give a lecture on board about iNat and the advantages both to the observer and more widely to science. The guests do mostly seem very interested in learning about the platform, although they are mostly retired folk so only a small handful of them get interested/brve enough to download the app and start making observations themselves.
In any case, as expedition staff we are strongly encouraged by the company to integrate citizen science into the cruises, often doing eBird surveys (as a group out on deck) and recording cetacean sightings with HappyWhale, for example.
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I’m a ‘retired folk’. But I am used to iNat on website/laptop. I uploaded my obs when I came home. My profile photo is aboard MSC Splendida on the Suez Canal.
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There are MANY interesting observations made on cruise ships between Alaska and Asia, the Amazon River in Brazil, etc by avid naturalist @argonauta
When you visualize her observations on a map, you can see how she observe from many unique localities far away from easily accessible road systems. Looks like she is in Greenland today!
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since 2022 cruises where my husband provides natural history related talks
on her profile
Yes, I use iNat wherever I am, home or away. I am an enthusiastic amateur, keen to keep learning. Have been on a grand total of three cruises, all the same small-ship company (one of them with Daniel Austin) and on each one, the expedition team has encouraged the use of iNat to share observations. I am also one of the old folks!
Wifi coming along with your ticket (I am reluctant to say ‘free’ - it’s included) is a great thing. I added more to iNat during a recent journey since I took a card reader to let me edit pics a bit and add observations using an iPad. Signing up to Happy Whale and receiving feedback on ‘my’ whales was great fun!
But sometimes I need to be at home to explore and investigate what I saw. And sometimes it takes the big screen at home for me to appreciate what I saw and to add more observations.
Please use the iNat messaging if you want any particular questions answering for your research. All the best with it, spokenworm 
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She was mothing on a ship/boat? That’s a cool use of a cruise.
Years ago I worked with someone from Lindblad (when iNat was still part of Nat Geo) about using it on polar expedititions. I don’t know what internet connection is like nowadays, but the lack of solid internet was a huge issue. Happy to talk more if you want to DM me.
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Indeed. I certainly wouldn’t wish to tar all ‘retired folk’ with the same brush by any means, but just meant in respect of there being, as age demographic increases, a higher proportion of technophobes as well as those who are not technophobic per se but nevertheless struggle to pick up and retain the learning needed to operate a new app. Many of them are in their 80s and some into their 90s, so there’s a fair proportion who need help to find and download a new app let alone know what to do with it once downloaded. Happy to acknowledge that there are also plenty of technically competent guests, even including a handful who have already used iNat or Seek.
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Yes! Lots of moths in the Amazon on a cruise, and even in Alaska:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/240427237
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/212908301
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A good place to start would be the 896 observations from Castaway Cay, a private island in The Bahamas owned by Disney that can only be accessed on a Disney cruise.
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Hey there! I work on one of the small polar cruise ships and heavily encourage guests to use iNat, HappyWhale, and EBird. We even have a specific group for our underwater observations since we have a unique program where we SCUBA dive or ROV and show the guests the underwater world (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/underwater-life-of-lex) but feel free to DM me and we can chat!
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Yes, I see what you mean. On each of these trips I’d expected there to be more people already signed up to iNat (or similar!) but that appeared not to be the case, likely a handful as you say. That being said, there some knowledgable naturalists amongst the passengers, of course.