Churchill... We have arrived!

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July 27, 2024 The official arrival day of the trip. Everyone is here. Tatiana and Kira arrived yesterday with me, and Christine made it today. Thomas was already here; he arrived last week to explore Churchill with his wife. He shared images from his time with another lodge and a visit to Fire Island. Lots of bears feeding there, fat on a beluga carcasses.

I need to get out there, man.

The boyz… Kenny and Jeromy.

Today, my friend and local bear guide Kenny took me out on his tinny (his boat). Just the two of us, it was cool. Jeromy, another good friend, was grumbling

because he wanted to go too. Lol, kids.

I get it; I would be jealous if they went without me. All of us are just grown-ass kids, wanting to do cool things all the time. Lol. It fills me with gratitude connecting with locals on these adventures. All of us with a strong love for nature and friendship that will last a lifetime.

We went out on the boat to find a bear that was at the point. We found it resting in the fog.

The fog was thick!

We motored around for a bit. I tried to get a photo of the bear, but the fog was too thick. So, we left the bear alone and just enjoyed watching the belugas circling our boat. They were really intrigued.

The tinny is great because you can hear the belugas. Their sounds echo.

With some editing I managed to remove the fog and bring out the bear. Even though the fog looked cool and spooky. I like to see the animals in my photos. lol

I think they might have been intrigued with the echo from the tinny and wanted to listen to it closer because they kept coming up to us over and over.

The belugas made some crazy noises that I recorded. That was wicked cool. I put together a video clip from the day. Going to be filming more stories on this trip.

I really do love storytelling.

So far, Churchill has been almost perfect.

The airline left my bag in Atlanta and has been slow to get it to me. It's been three days.

But despite not having my bag, I am filled with gratitude again. I had no issues getting here. All my flights were on time, and thankfully, I have my cameras with me. To help me survive waiting for my bag to catch up, I stopped at Walmart in Winnipeg to buy some extra clothes and toiletry stuff.

So I am blessed. All is well. Especially with the nightmares people have been experiencing at airports lately, I feel really lucky to have gotten to Churchill without any delays.

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Sadly, I don't have my wetsuit, which is fine. I can rent it from the hotel. But my mask and snorkel, man! Gonna miss having that.

Hopefully, I will only have to deal with it for one more day.

The bag is supposed to arrive on Monday. Feeling confident it will be there for me.

Today is our first day in the water... the adventure is off to a great start!

Goodbye Scotland, Hello Canada!

I do not even know where to begin with this blog. I sit here in a hotel room in Winnipeg, Canada, resting after a couple of long flying days, trying to gather my thoughts on what to write today. It has been one hell of a journey this summer, and it is far from over.

I just returned from a successful, yet unsuccessful Scotland trip, searching for basking sharks. Scotland was amazing, the place is a land of dreams; The castles, the landscape, the people. All of it is just magical.

The wildlife is epic as well… well that is if we had seen any. Sadly the basking sharks and the puffins were a no-show. We saw some Scottish red deer, and otters, and highland cows (that was pretty cool), But sadly, we missed the puffins by a couple of days, and the basking sharks were down deep.

The waters temperatures are changing and the places where we would normally find basking sharks were too cold. We needed the surface temperatures to warm up a bit so that the plankton would rise to the surface, attracting the sharks up.

So sadly we saw zero sharks. It happens. Nature can be cruel that way. All it means is we need to go back and try it again.

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So here I sit, anxious to kick off the next adventure, which is to find beluga whales and polar bears in Churchill. My flight to Churchill is tomorrow morning and man I can’t wait. I have not been to Churchill since 2018. That was the last season they allowed snorkeling with the beluga whales. In 2019 they decided to ban all swimming with the whales, so we took a year off from visiting here to let the powers that be figure things out.

They did… they came up with beluga boarding. Which is, we are allowed to lay down on a floating mat, that gets towed behind the boat, and we can stick our faces and cameras in the water to see the approaching whales. We wanted to return in 2020, but covid hit and well, you know the rest of that.

Normally belugas are shy, and when we would jump in the water with them the whales would keep a healthy distance from us. However with this approach, the belugas are extremely curious and come right up to the cameras for a closer look. I am super excited about giving it a try to see how it works out.

Well, the waiting game and a new adventure to share with you all begins.

I am really excited to tell this tale, because Churchill is also a magical place. I am hoping the wifi will allow me to update you guys while I am out there. We will see, either way, I will be able to post thing on our social media pages. I just hope I can share stories on our website, which is where I prefer sharing things.

Until then thanks for reading.

Beluga Whale Trip Report - from 2018.

I am playing catch up with trip reports from previous trips. This is from our beluga whale expedition that we ran back in 2018. I know I am late posting it, but it had been on my mind and I always wanted to get it up. The adventure and the experience was so good it was a must share.

Sadly due to Covid we have not been back to Canada since this trip, but thankfully we will finally return to visit this magical place.

Super excited about sharing this very late trip report with you all. We hope you enjoy…

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