Captains and Crew

Our captains, Noel and Andrew, are United States Coast Guard licensed vessel masters.

Since leaving Monterey at 18, Andy Troia, now 48, has pretty much made his life at sea — building and repairing wood boats in Washington state, piloting ships for Greenpeace and most recently flying a float plane in Alaska.

Troia, whose father and two uncles used to own Troia's Market in Monterey, said he was drawn to the business in large part because of the way it was run by the previous owners, Stephen Dutton and Heidi Tiura — and he hopes to keep it running as is. He kept the boat's crew, including captain Noel Flores.

Educating tourists and locals about the wonders of the Monterey Bay is his new mission, Troia said.

Exposing people to the wonders of the bay fits well with Troia's passion for preserving oceans and the marine life in them — a passion that led him to working for Greenpeace for 16 years.

While with Greenpeace, he conducted missions all over the world, including three to Antarctica, where he and a team of about 35 activists confronted Japanese commercial whalers hunting southern minke whales.

Greenpeace missions lasted three or four months, usually during the winter — summertime in Antarctica. He would fill the rest of the year up with other boat-related jobs, including his summer job the last four years flying a float boat in Alaska.

Read Andy's complete story here...

Noel is a skilled naturalist and thoroughly enjoys sharing his love and knowledge for whales with our guests. Andrew has sailed in every ocean and circumnavigated the globe at least twice. Most of his seafaring has been in the pursuit of environmental causes.

Hillary Savage is the Senior Deckhand as well as a Naturalist and Bird Specialist. Hillary is a favorite of our guests.