Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Zodiac man gets his day
Rodney Russ lives for the times he is at the rudder of a Zodiac.
For the owner of Heritage Expeditions, the New Zealand-based company that is operating the Russian research ship Professor Khromov in the Bering Sea, the more challenging the conditions the better.
“The rougher the waves, the more difficult the landing, the more remote and obscure the place, the more I enjoy it,” Russ said in a corridor on the Khromov. 
So it was with disappointment that Russ was forced to put the inflatable boat with the outboard motor away, after he had donned his wet-weather gear and readied the craft for a spin off the Siberian coast in late August.
The plan was nixed by the Russian navy representative on board.
It took months for the joint U.S.-Russian RUSALCA oceanographic expedition to get the necessary clearances to travel through Russian waters in the Khromov, deploying data-gathering moorings, and using a high-tech instrument to take water samples.
