I just finished up my second article for The Journal of Wildlife Photography, which I was thrilled about. My second 3000 plus word article. It is stressful but in a good way. The reason it is stressful is because I want to tell a good story; I am hoping the reader takes something from it and is entertained at the same time. That is always my hope when I write, but you never know. It could be a total lemon, as I am sure I have written many lemons throughout my career.

Thinking about that got me to looking back at my role as a storyteller. I have been writing and sharing stories for years; on paper, in newsletters, in my journal, and my blog. I began writing in a journal right out of high school, and I started a blog back in 2005 on our old website. Sadly I took down that website to divert the old traffic to our new website, and in doing so, all those years of blogging disappeared. I am sure if I wanted to, I could find them floating in cyberspace, drifting endlessly among millions of other web pages. All of them lost with nowhere to go.

Thankfully, I still have those pages and writings saved on a hard drive, so they are there for me whenever I want to look back to read my thoughts from those long-lost days.

I do enjoy writing; I enjoy the art of getting lost in a story, or taking a reader on a journey. Sharing ideas and worlds and moments, I love that about writing. As a kid, all my favorite books were from writers who would take me with them to farway places; exotic lands, exotic animals, exotic people. I wanted to be there, I wanted to see that animal, to breathe in the air, to feel the wind. Those escapes are what helped to turn me into the person I am today.

I do hope that when you read my blogs and stories, you feel the same way - That I have taken you on a journey. I know not all my stories have because sometimes they are just rants that I need to get off my mind. But hopefully, more often than not, I take you on a ride, somewhere… anywhere.

Thanks for reading.

Well, I finally did it. I updated our website.

This has been one of those projects that has given me hell for years—costing thousands of dollars, endless frustration, and disappointment after disappointment. For almost a decade, I pretty much gave up on the idea of building a new site. I stuck with the original, flawed as it was, because at least it was ours.

But every time I looked at that old site, it bugged me. I knew it could be better. So after one last, desperate search for help, I decided: enough was enough. I was going to build it myself.

I built our original website for Shark Diver Magazine years ago, after being let down by the first round of web developers. And here’s the thing—most web developers I’ve worked with try to get too fancy. They get excited about the latest tech trend or some new design tool, and instead of giving me what I need, they end up overcomplicating it. And, well... it usually ends in a mess.

I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I was determined to get this thing done.

Thanks to a good friend (shoutout to Jero), I gave Squarespace a try. After a full day of fumbling through it, I picked a template I liked and just started building. Slowly, it began to feel like something I could actually be proud of.

The first priority was getting back to the core of what SDM is all about—who we are and what we do: travel, adventure, and wildlife. From there, it was about creating a better experience for you—more content, more stories, and a gallery of images. We’ve got thousands of photos sitting on hard drives, collecting dust. So many moments worth sharing. Creating galleries was always something I dreamed of doing, and now it’s finally happening.

Next, I tackled the blog. The old setup made blogging a total pain. I love writing, but it was just too clunky. Now, this new blog page is user-friendly—well, at least for me—and I plan to use it often.

So this is what you’re seeing now: the new look and feel of SDM Adventures. We’re currently using sdmdiving.com as the main URL, mostly because I’m still figuring out how to connect sdmadventures.com. And there’s way too much history with sharkdivermag.com to let it go entirely. Eventually, I’ll migrate everything over—but for now, it’s baby steps.

My first attempt as web designer. — My first attempt as a web designer.

I’ve been blogging on sharkdivermag.com since 2005. I haven’t yet figured out how to bring all those old stories over here, but maybe I’ll find a way to link them. There's a lot of history there—too much to lose. Again, baby steps.

And speaking of history…
Sadly, the old website is now down—and with it, all the years of blogging I’d been doing since 2005. That one hits hard. I had documented our journey in real time—our early trips, our wins and struggles, the animals, the people, the behind-the-scenes stories. So many memories. So many moments now lost in cyberspace.

It’s something I’m not happy about. But I’m not giving up on them just yet.

I’m going to dig into the Wayback Machine, see if I can recover some snapshots. I’ll check old backups, hard drives, even see if our former hosting provider has anything archived. Maybe—just maybe—I can link some of those old stories back into this new home. Baby steps. Always.

But if none of it comes back, then this blog becomes something even more important. A clean slate. A tribute to what came before. A place to keep telling the stories that still matter. Because there are so many left to share—and I’m not done yet.

Now, the store—that’s been the hardest part. For some reason, it’s always been a stumbling block. Every time I hired someone to help build a store, it turned into something bigger. I’d ask for a simple store, they’d want to redesign the whole site, and I’d say yes (so yeah, this mess is kind of on me). Thousands of dollars later… no working store.

But not this time. I’m building it myself. And when it’s ready, I’ll proudly share it with you.

current site on SharkDiverMag.com — The final look of our website SharkDiverMag.com (2016), before we moved over to SDMdiving.com.

The store will include our shirts, rash guards, back issues of the magazine, and something I’ve always wanted: an art gallery of prints, featuring some of the most powerful moments we’ve captured over the years.

For now, I’m just excited to share the new site with you. It looks great, it feels right, and I hope you enjoy it and come back often. I’ll be updating it regularly, and the blog will feature both written and video stories. There’s still so much left to share—so many animals, places, and moments worth remembering.

To all our friends who’ve been with us from the beginning—this is for you.
Thank you for sticking with us through it all.

Storytelling... I Absolutely LOVE IT!

Our new website...Hell Yea!