site.btaBoat Captain Elka Vasileva: Desire for Freedom and Courage to Follow My Dreams Led Me to Antarctica

Elka Vasileva, whose word is law in the icy waters off the coast of Livingston Island, says she drives a boat in this remote and magical place at the end of the world. She used to be called a boatman, now she is a Zodiac boat driver and that is her main job in Antarctica, she explains with a smile. She is taking part in the fourth Bulgarian Antarctic expedition and when there are no projects on the water she drives snowmobiles and provides people with skis on the glaciers as a field assistant.

She says she never expected to be in this place. When she found out they were looking for someone to drive a boat in Antarctica, she was working on a Christo Javacheff project in Paris, packing the Arc de Triomphe.

The sea and navigation are some of the most interesting things in life she has encountered, says Elka Nunio Vasileva:

“It was super interesting and it still is - we happen to go to places where we have no information, we have no depths, we have no maps of the coast... We can't compare this to the old explorers nowadays who were really naked and barefoot in these places with a lot of crazy equipment, but it's still a real exploration, very impressive, and the challenge of being the first woman in this position here, which in the eyes of Bulgarians is a bit difficult - a woman on a boat, let alone a woman in charge on the water.

The first time I met old Admiral Mednikarov, he reacted very positively, he said how much they need women at sea! I was shocked because there is a belief that a woman on board brings misfortune and also women lack authority. But it's all experience and it's important that we can get to more interesting places and come back alive and well."

Nunio goes back in time and says she learned almost everything about sailing at sea from her father. They first drove all kinds of scooters, jet skis, homemade sailboats.

Her longest trip was across the Atlantic, almost three years living with her mother and father on a 10-meter boat where she participated in all the activities on the water. They had a radio station that only worked at close range, no radio phones, no internet, no communication of any kind. At the time Elka was 19 years old.

"My outlook on the world has changed enormously and I owe that to my father who taught me that at sea, if you know what to do, it's the freest life you can lead. But if you don't know and you don't manage yourself properly, it can get very bad."

Everything Elka Vasileva does now is based on life experience and the "madness" of her father, who was brave enough to follow his dream, says the woman, a boat captain off Livingston Island. Her father came from a family that had absolutely nothing to do with sailing on the sea. Her grandmother was a professor of literature, her grandfather a professor of nuclear physics, and her father was a theatre scholar.

Elka graduated from the art academy, majoring in metal, but the desire for freedom and the courage to follow her dreams led her to the Bulgarian Antarctic base on Livingston Island.

The Bulgarian naval research vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii (RSV 421) departed from Varna on its third Antarctic expedition on November 7, 2024, and arrived at Livingston Island on December 28. The St Kliment Ohridski Bulgarian Antarctic Base on Livingston Island opened for the new polar season on November 23, 2024.

BTA has a national press club on the vessel and at the Bulgarian Antarctic base. This is the third year in a row that BTA has sent a correspondent to Antarctica. This year's correspondent is Milena Ostrovska, who arrived at the base on January 17. Her reports can be accessed free in English at Bulgaria-Antarctica BTA's Log on BTA's website and can be used for free by all media with attribution to BTA.