These are my top ten moments / memories with wildlife. I have had countless moments that stand out and are special, but these are the ones that truly stick out in my mind’s eye and are very special to me… I don’t have them in order, or moments that I see as the greatest moment of my career. They are all special and stand out for me for many different reasons.
# 10. Today’s favorite moment is anaconda diving in the Pantanal Brazil (Sept. 2018). Being in the water with this iconic and mysterious creature is something I will never forget. For such a long time I had dreamed of this moment, and it almost didn’t happen for me. I first blundered with screwing up, and not getting my visa for Brazil and lost out on going that season. The following year, we got out there and there was a freak cold front that moved through the area and the snakes were not active. Finally on day four of a five day trip, the sun came out and we found our anaconda. A big 4 meter snake. She was sleeping by the river, sunning herself, and we were able to get in the water and spend time with this beautiful animal. Talk about emotionally overwhelming for me. It truly brought me to tears. Seeing her in the water, seeing our guests with her, it was too much. I lost it. Truly one of my best days in the water.
# 9. Encountering our first true wild orangutan. We were on our final day of safari at Dermakot Rainforest, Borneo (Feb. 2020), and we had yet to find any wild orangutans here. We had encountered them at the orangutan rehab center and those orangutans were wild, but they were habituated to people and very relaxed.
So while on safari in Dermakot, we were driving around seeking out wildlife when I spotted something big orange and hairy sitting on the forest floor in the shadows of the trees. I excitedly told our driver to back up, but our guide said it would be faster to jump out of the vehicle to try and snap some images before it ran off. With the truck engine turned off, we could already hear our orangutan trying desperately to climb a tree and get away from us. We all jumped out and ran to the side of the road, our feet deep in the mud, it constantly rains here. We could hear it, but couldn’t see it yet.
Finally, through a break in the leaves, up in the tree, a hand emerge as it reached for the higher tree branches to pull itself up and into the clearing, it was a massive male orangutan. We were all on fire. It kept climbing up the tree and finally we could see the body of this giant ape. He looked down at us as he kept climbing. Then he turned and reached for some branches from another tree to swing across. And there he was… straddling between two trees, peering down at us, this forest king…a massive dominant male orangutan. He was our first for the trip, the other orangutans we had encountered were females and juveniles. He then let go of the first tree and disappeared into the leaves of the second. What was left were smiles on all our faces as we listened to him crashing though the forest, as he made his way deeper in. We were all on fire from the encounter, it lasted only seconds, but I have no doubt that it will be forever etched on all our minds.
# 8. My first encounter swimming with wild alligators in the swamps of Florida. This was one of the coolest and also a really intense day spent in the water with big animals I have experienced. My buddy Chris Doherty and I, were invited to join our friend, gator expert Chris Gillette for a day of seeking out Florida wildlife in one of Chris G’s favorite swampy spots. Talk about intense, visibility is not the best there and when you are seeking out animals like wild alligators in murky conditions, the pucker factor is high. We found ten different gators that day I believe? Which was epic as hell.
During one encounter, one of the bigger alligators we found was laying motionless on the river bottom. For a few minutes, it allowed us to drop down to snap images of it. But I guess it got bored and decided to move on. As it started to move, I could see that it was swimming directly at me and Chris D. I started trying to back swim to get out of his way, using my hands as paddles, and I grabbed what I thought was a branch on the side of the swamp, which turned out to be Chris D’s calf. I used it to help push me back, and it worked, BUT It also moved Chris D forward and directly into the gators path, which sent Chris into panic mode as he was now moving directly at the approaching gator. Thankfully the gator had zero interest in us and ducked down and moved on to quieter waters. It was a great close up encounter, and I smile every time I think about it. However, I have a dive buddy who constantly reminds me of how I tried to feed him to the alligators. Lol Easily one of my favorite days in the wild.
#7. Encounter with an 11 foot mako off Southern California, during our TV show shoot of Blue Water Savages definitely stands out as one of my all time favorite memories. So little was and is known about monster sized makos. It was rumored that once a mako reaches a certain size, that they feed exclusive on marine mammals and are therefore un-diveable. I wanted to find out if this was true. I had no idea what to expect, as the biggest mako I had encountered before this guy was only 7 feet long, this was new territory for me. The pucker-factor was through the roof.
I was the first one in the water and as soon as she saw me, she swam straight for me. She swam up and I held my camera in between us. She was going to test bite the camera, but I didn’t want her to scratch the dome port, so I put my hand on top of her head and guided her away. she winced from my touch, but she didn’t leave. She swam around us, curious about us, but never aggressive. I don’t know how all big makos act in the water, but our mako was a complete sweetheart, and we spent almost an hour with her in the water before we had to get out to finish filming the episode. What a dream and an honor it was to be in the water with such a rare and massive animal, I was truly humbled. What also highlighted the moment even more for me was having my son, David in the water with me during that shoot. A dream day!
With our producer Robin, he is 6’-5, so a great size comparison for our mako.
# 6. Encounter with a juvenile blue whale off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Went out for a fun day with buddies to try and chum up some sharks, but instead of sharks, we found a juvenile blue whale. We decided to scrap the idea of chumming for sharks, and spent the day trying to snap a few images of this amazingly massive animal. Dropping down and sharing the water with the largest mammal in the world is forever in my soul. What made it even more special was having Dave Valencia snap a shot of me with the whale. Proof that I was there.
#5. on my all time favorite moments with wildlife... watching this baby humpback whale rolling and dancing with my girls, Sophia and Maritza, just a few feet away from them, off Ha’apai, Tonga.
Baby humpbacks don't realize how big they are, and this one was very interested in my Sophia and was coming in close to check her out. It was slapping around it's huge flippers. I was torn between swimming over to protect my girls from this friendly whale that was getting closer and closer to them, or to just continue trying to take pictures of this encounter. Well, my desire to snap some images of my girls won over... I mean, I NEEDED images of this to share of this special encounter. And thankfully my girls are alive and well. But I do admit to having a bit of a panic attack for a fleeting second when this big baby got too close to my baby.
# 4. Passing the torch. One of my favorite moments/experiences with wildlife has been watching My boy David embrace this shark diving world and becoming a shark feeder as well. It makes me proud as hell to see him feed sharks. But ain’t gonna lie, even though I am a feeder, it also worries the shit out of me. I remember the first time I gave him the bait box to feed one of our resident tigers at Tiger Beach. It was all going well, nice and mellow - then one of the other shark boats left, and ALL the sharks they had, instantly showed up at our boat, and they all went right up to the box... man I swam so fast, jumping in front of him. David was looking at me with frustrated eyes, as I was pushing him out of the way. He was trying to let me know, “I got it, I am ok.” And I have no doubt he would have been fine, But my parental instincts kicked in regardless, and I was pushing away sharks, screaming in my head, “get away from my baby!” 🤣. We still laugh about that.
#3. of my all time favorite/memorable experiences with wildlife. Dancing and rolling with sharks. The highlights of my shark diving career will always be what I have learned from sharks when they choose to interact with me. Rolling tigers, giving lemons back rubs, learning new behaviors from great hammerheads... all these things are truly special and moments I will cherish forever.
Some of the things I have learned from them are firsts, which is so rare in the world. Definitely the first to roll tigers, which truly is a dream knowing that I helped pioneer new ways to interact with these animals. Was it necessary… no it wasn’t, but learning how animals behave and helping to change how sharks are viewed by the general public is something that I am very proud of.
#2. of my all time favorite/memories with wildlife... our bobcat, Sophia and I spent four months stalking this cat- in search of capturing a photo of a successful predation event. We encountered this cat many times and managed to snap lots of different images with this beautiful cat. But we were after a successful hunting image, where the cat captured it’s prey. We finally did get our shot, and it is easily one of my most favorite and cherished memories. The whole thing is; from 5am wake ups, to freezing cold rainy mornings, to mornings where we thought the mosquitoes were going to eat us alive, to Mari calling us, asking, when were we getting home, because Sophia had to start school, to the day we captured the image of our cat with a bird, in it’s mouth. It was all amazing memories for me... especially getting to share it all with my baby girl.
#1. My all time favorite memory/moment with wildlife is easily the time I shared with orcas in New Zealand during a Sharkweek film shoot. We were scheduled to swim with orcas during the shoot, but I was not 100% convinced we were going to see them. The day of the shoot, and our encounter with the orcas is one I will never forget. When we dropped in to see them, I was watching them and they were very curious about us, so I decided to try something. I remembered with the Bimini dolphins that if you spin in the water, the dolphins will sometimes join you... so I decided to try it with the orcas and it worked. I had one of the juveniles come in to look at me and see what I was doing, then a second orca came in to check me out. It was such an incredible experience and one I will never forget. I am often asked if I ever felt threatened by the orcas and I can say with 100% certainty... never, Only excitement and fire (for lack of a better word), when I am with these animals. They are truly special animals and I feel blessed to have been able to share time with them.
