Diving in Playa Del Carmen... Day One.

Ramon and my girls, Mari and Sophia. Let’s go diving!!!

July 5, 2025. Day One, Dive One
We kicked off the trip down South with Phantom Divers for a couple of reef dives, and the conditions couldn’t have been better… calm seas, bright sun, and that perfect Caribbean glow.

It is always fun diving with Phantoms, here in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico.

We try to stop in and hang out with them every time we visit this part of Mexico. 

I met them back in 2009, during the Shark Diver Magazine days, and they have become part of my extended family. 

Especially my bro Ramon… A fellow shark feeder and genuine badass. 

Our first dive was at Punta Venado, where we encountered three turtles, two hawksbills and one massive loggerhead. 

Loggerhead seaturtle

No photos of the hawksbills this time, but I did manage to get a few shots of the loggerhead. 

She was a big, beautiful female, so large that she made Polo, one of our friends from Phantom Divers, look small in comparison.

Polo and Loggerhead

It was a fun dive, especially watching Ramon swim around with his camera, capturing everything. 

It’s always cool to see that after all these years, he’s still lit up by the marine life right in his backyard.

Ramon shooting the reef.

The dive ended with a school of jacks swirling above us, then dropping down to the reef right in front of us, a nice, big school of fish that made for a strong close to the dive.

Dive Two – Barracuda Reef

Next, we drifted over Barracuda Reef, a beautiful stretch with overhangs and pockets of sea grass. 

We were hoping for green sea turtles, and we found two grazing in the grass. 

Atlantic green seaturtles

They didn’t stick around long, greens tend to be more cautious than the other species. 

Polo and Ramon share a moment…

Later, we spotted a big male loggerhead and a male green turtle, but both were just out of reach for a real encounter.

Still, three turtle species on our first day of diving is pretty damn cool.

Also spotted a small school of squid, curious little creatures. 

They darted off at first, then came back around for another look at us. 

It’s those little moments that often stick with you.

It was a solid day, with old friends, good conditions, and turtles leading the way.

Tomorrow we dive again. 

Let’s see what shows up.

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Thank you for reading our Blog.

*New Blogs posted 3–4 times a week. (sometimes more.)
Follow along for fresh stories, trip updates, and raw moments from the wild.

Expect the Unexpected: The Real Magic of Wildlife Expeditions

I get asked all the time: “What’s the best time of year to guarantee orca sightings?” or “Are we definitely going to see jaguars?”

And while I get the excitement, and I share it, there’s something every wildlife traveler needs to understand before they pack their bags:

Wildlife doesn’t follow scripts.

No matter how much planning we do, how perfect the timing is, or how dialed-in the location may be… wildlife does what it wants.

That’s the magic.
And…
that’s also the challenge.

I’ve led trips where we didn’t see any orcas, even though they were there the day before we arrived, and then watched guests lose their minds with excitement over a Bryde’s whale feeding on a baitball, changing the entire vibe of the trip.

I’ve had guests disappointed for the first half of a journey, only to witness something they never expected, something more meaningful than what they came for.

We’ve missed giant anteaters and found jaguars instead.
We’ve searched for sperm whales and been surprised by a five hour session with pilot whales.
We’ve gone looking for orangutans… and ended up face-to-face with a herd of 100+ pygmy forest elephants.

So always be ready for the wild card.

When You Travel for Wildlife, Travel for Wonder… Not Control

If you come on one of our trips expecting to check boxes or recreate something you saw in a photo or documentary, you might be setting yourself up for disappointment.

But if you arrive with your heart wide open, curious, patient, and willing to embrace the unexpected, you’ll almost always walk away with something that stays with you forever.

What You Can Control

Your attitude. Be flexible. The weather might shift. The animals might not show up on cue. But the adventure is still out there.

Your presence. Let go of pressure. Be in the moment. Sometimes the best encounter is the one you almost miss because you’re too focused on what should happen.

Your ability to roll with it. When things go sideways, and they occasionally do, that’s often when the best stories are born.

So next time you pack your gear for a wildlife trip, pack a little extra space, for whatever wild card nature decides to throw your way.

And…

My Best Advice?

Don’t chase the highlight reel.
Chase the feeling. The spontaneous moments. The beautiful surprises.
Chase the way the ocean breathes when the animals finally show up.
Chase the way the jungle holds its breath just before something appears.

Because out there, in the middle of nowhere, with the wind in your face and your expectations left behind…That’s when the magic finds you.

Thank you for reading.

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*New Blogs posted 3–4 times a week. (sometimes more.)
Follow along for fresh stories, trip updates, and raw moments from the wild.

A Day in the Life of a Wildlife Guide and Photographer… Why This Name Finally Feels Right.

Over the years, I’ve named and renamed this blog more times than I can count.

Each time, I was trying to capture what we do, the energy of the work, the magic of the wildlife, the grit of the journey. But nothing ever quite felt right. It just didn’t fully reflect who I am or what this life is actually like.

Until now.

I’ve finally landed on a name that feels good:
A Day in the Life of a Wildlife Guide and Photographer.

It fits, because that's truly what this blog and my YouTube channel have become, a window into what we do out there. Not just the epic moments with polar bears, orcas on the hunt, or dancing with sharks... but the full reality of our days in the field.

The early mornings.
The gear failures.
The missed sightings.
The quiet days where the ocean feels empty.
The magic we chase anyway.

If you’ve watched my YouTube videos, you already know they’re far from polished.

They’re raw, in-the-moment, and definitely flawed, but I love them that way. They’re honest. They share the heart and soul of what we experience out there.

Until now, I’ve mostly shared highlights, those big, cinematic moments when nature delivers something unforgettable. And don’t get me wrong, I’ll keep sharing those.

But I’ve been thinking…

Maybe it’s time to start sharing the lows, as well.

The days when nothing shows up.
The long waits.
The breakdowns.
The hours of effort that go into those brief flashes of beauty.

It might bore some people. But I think others might find it refreshing. Real. Even inspiring. Because that’s what these trips are actually like.

Wild places don’t follow scripts. And neither do we.

So, this name, “A Day in the Life of a Wildlife Guide and Photographer” is more than just a title. It’s a direction. For this blog. For our channel. For how I want to tell these stories.

Thanks for being here, and for following along on this wild ride.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

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Thank you for reading our Blog.

*New Blogs posted 3–4 times a week. (sometimes more.)
Follow along for fresh stories, trip updates, and raw moments from the wild.

Storytelling... I Absolutely LOVE IT!

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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. 

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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.

Our new website...Hell Yea!

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.

Our first website. February 2002

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.

2nd attempt.

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.

3rd facelift

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 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.

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.