What's new in Sea Spotter

Richer sighting reports

Since we launched, reporting a sighting has gotten a lot more capable. You can now attach a photo when you log something — snap it or pick one from your library. Reports still send instantly with species, location, time, and count, even offline; the photo just uploads quietly in the background once you are back on a connection, so a slow photo never holds up the sighting itself.

Speed is now entered in knots, because that is what actually makes sense on a boat. Orca finally got its own category instead of being folded into "Other" (which we removed), and every species in the picker now comes with a proper description. If you spot something that is not on the list yet, you can suggest it — your sighting still goes out right away under the closest category while we review the addition.

More to see on the map

Tap any sighting icon and you get the full picture: species, count, notes, photo, and time. Tap a cluster of overlapping sightings and it opens up into the individual reports underneath. Icons also stay exactly where they belong now when you rotate the map — a small fix, but a satisfying one if you sail with the chart rotated to your heading.

A little friendly competition

Every confirmed sighting earns reputation points, and your profile now shows a sailing rank, from Deckhand up to Commodore. There is also a Hall of Fame — a weekly and monthly leaderboard of the sailors logging the most confirmed sightings. Other sailors can vote a sighting up or down, too (just not their own).

After you report something exciting, you will also get a fun, pre-written caption to share it through your phone's normal share sheet — no location data included, so what happens on the water stays between you and whoever you send it to.

Sea Spotter now speaks Portuguese

That brings us to eight languages: English, Polish, German, Italian, Croatian, Spanish, French, and now Portuguese. And if you would rather read the fine print yourself than trust our summary of it, the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service now open right inside the app instead of a web view, in whatever language your phone is already set to.

Smoother underneath

A lot of this stretch was less visible but just as important: clearer error messages instead of raw server errors, push notifications that now take you straight to the right spot on the map the moment you tap them, and a more reliable photo upload path. If you report while offline, you will see it queued right on the Report screen until it goes through.

What's next

That is the shape of the last month and a half. There is more in the works — if you want the full technical release notes, check the changelog. For everything else: keep reporting what you see out there.