2026 American Samoa Mapping + Transit

If you’ve enjoyed any classic books or movies that involve sailing on the open ocean, you might have some preconceived notions of what a voyage lasting many weeks would feel like. Maybe you picture sailors in cramped, dank quarters for days on end, dining on salted meats and biscuits hard enough to chip a tooth. An exaggeration? Perhaps. As I live and work aboard NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, though, I’ve been struck by how far comfort aboard a working ship has come.

A view from the fantail of NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer. Image courtesy of Brandon Gertz, 2026 American Samoa Mapping + Transit. Download largest version (jpg, 2 MB).

We’re spending about a month at sea between departing Fiji and arriving at Okeanos Explorer’s next port call in Honolulu (and doing some seafloor mapping along the way). That’s a substantial amount of time on its own, but some members of the team sail on multiple expeditions each year. Spending so long on a ship makes replicating the comforts of home important for health and morale, and the team aboard Okeanos Explorer does that very well.

Take food, for example: The offerings in Okeanos Explorer’s mess deck are far from hardtack. On the first day of this expedition, I helped stow the provisions for our journey. There were meats and crackers, of course, but also boxes of strawberries, giant bags of garlic, crates of lettuce, and more types of fruit juice than I’d seen before in my life. Moving all the food off of trucks and into the ship must have taken at least an hour. The ship’s stewards prepare three square meals a day, and each one comes with a dessert: a feature that, I’m told, is somewhat unique to Okeanos Explorer among the NOAA fleet. Ice cream is served on Sundays, and the stewards even baked a cake for a crewmember’s birthday.

One dinner early on in the expedition consisted of salmon, rice, roasted cauliflower, and a full salad bar. Image courtesy of Brandon Gertz, 2026 American Samoa Mapping + Transit. Download largest version (jpg, 2 MB).

With so much good food, you might wonder how we get enough exercise aboard the ship. Okeanos Explorer is only 68 meters (224 feet) long, so no one is running any marathons. Dedicated workout spaces, however, mean that we’re never lacking for options. The ship’s gym boasts a treadmill, a rowing machine, and a full set of weights (we just have to lift with care, as the bobbing of the ship can cause the apparent weight of equipment to rise and fall drastically). If expedition participants feel like getting some fresh air, the boat deck outdoors is also equipped with a stationary bicycle, a pull-up bar, and even more barbells.

A view of one corner of the gym aboard NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer. Image courtesy of Brandon Gertz, 2026 American Samoa Mapping + Transit. Download largest version (jpg, 1 MB).

Hugely important, then, is the availability of showers. Each stateroom, where the majority of our team sleeps in bunk beds, is connected to a shower shared with at most one other room. There are also washers and dryers for laundry aboard the ship– all using fresh water produced by Okeanos Explorer’s reverse osmosis system.

Maybe the most meaningful comfort, though, is the ability to call home. Even on the open ocean between Fiji and Hawaiʻi, days of sailing from land and thousands of miles from home, our crew and science team are able to keep in touch with their friends and family ashore. Where sailors could once only gaze wistfully at the horizon, the technology aboard Okeanos Explorer lets us call, email, and text loved ones at any time. More than any other comfort, that connectedness feels to me like a privilege of modern sailing and of this ship in particular.

Okeanos Explorer is no luxury cruise liner. There are no daily port calls, no pool on the sun deck, and no shuffleboard games. Each team member here has a full time job to do as we explore the ocean, and we take pride in that. Even so, the modern amenities we have aboard the ship make a monthlong expedition a far more comfortable experience than in years gone by.

By Brandon Gertz, NOAA Ocean Exploration