Travel Day... Croc Diving Trip 2.

July 5, 2019 - Travel Day… Headed to Xcalak Mexico for our second croc diving trip of the 2019 season. Yes, we are taking our new group of friends out there to swim with crocodiles. The down side, it is another 5 hour drive to get from Cancun to Xcalak, and then a minimum 2 hour boat ride to get to Banco Chinchorro. Why are all the best places so freaking hard to get too? This week we are taking 6 people from very different parts of the world; Belgium, Australia, Guatemala, Bermuda, California and New York. The accents you hear are always fun. Super pumped to introduce them to the crocs tomorrow. The weather looks favorable for us and I am referring to the crossing from Xcalak to Banco Chinchorro, because once you are at Chinchorro, the weather is always good.

Last week, the crossing kicked our ass. It normally takes about two and half hours to get there, and less than two hours on a smooth glassy day. But last week’s crossing took us 5 hours of crap weather. It was a beating on the body and soul man. The winds and the swells kicked us around and kept us wet the entire ride. Hoping for a nicer ocean crossing for this group, and not going to lie, for me!

The croc action last week was pretty good, Gambit (the star croc of Chinchorro), was with us two of the three days. She/he is getting big. I know it is a slow growth, but finally she is starting to girth up. Hoping to see her get in to the teen sizes, here in the next few years. It always makes for a more amazing dive when you get these monster sized animals coming in to play with.

So an update from yesterday’s blog, and my new art project. I am super pumped that I am almost finished with the photos for my friend Sandra, the amazing soul that gave me the honor of allowing me to share my work on the walls of our local hospital. So far I have sent about 46 images to my buddy Chris, who is printing them up for me, and drop shipping them to the framer. I still need 6 more and then I am done with my part until they do the red carpet opening party they have planned, which should be fun. I just hope I am in town for that. Excited that my daughter Sophia will have a few images up there with me, along with my brother in law, AJ. 

We need to add some variety to the art we are displaying for local wildlife and it wouldn’t be complete without some RGV reptiles, and sadly, I didn’t have any, but AJ for sure did. He loves capturing images of local wildlife as well, so I asked if he had a few images that he would allow us to use for the project. He was fired up about it and sent me a lot to choose from. I found three that were pretty amazing. So anyway, this is today’s update for the blog. I will try and finish up a video for the trip before I return from Chinchorro, to share with you guys when I get back to Playa for our final night of the trip.

This one didn’t make the cut, but one similar to it did. This shot is pretty amazing though.

I am going to try and write up a daily blog when I can and I wanted to write one up before we left to the island tomorrow, but not sure if I can, since we are leaving at 8am tomorrow morning. Tomorrow will be a bit of chaos, because we will be packing for a two night stay at Casa Matracka’s fishing cabin. So not sure if I will have time, but will try. For now, good night my friends…

Mexico Madness... Our Summer Continues.

Hey guys, so I have been super behind on blogs and vlogs and updates. So sorry about that, the craziness of our summer has begun and it is hard trying to keep everyone up to date on what we have been doing and where we have been going. Well, it is a bit easier on our social media pages, because we can drop an image to share what we did that day or week. It is fast and easy. So if you are not following us on Facebook and Instagram, get on it.

I did post a vlog from our Africa trip, well the first day of the trip. I recorded one everyday and I wanted to do all five days, but I have not been able to. Here is the reason why. Right now, I have been commissioned to provide 50 plus images for one of the big hospitals in our area, which is remodeling their entire first floor, with all new framed images, and I have been given the honor of having our wildlife pictures, of both local wildlife, and ocean wildlife for this project. So for the past month and change, I have been seeking out some of mine, and Sophia’s favorite and best images for this project. It has been super time consuming and a lot of fun. Looking forward to sharing with you guys, this project when it is done.

Anyway, I am almost finished with submitting the images and once that is done, I can try and catch up with more vlogs, blogs, and trip reports, for you guys. I need to write up Africa and Baja orcas (I am so behind). So far I have submitted 40 of the 50 images already to our printer, but I still need 10 more to go. So I promised myself this blog would be short, because I need to finish this up before I leave tomorrow for our second crocodile diving trip to Banco Chinchorro.

This morning, I said good bye to our guests who joined us on the first trip. Writing this on the couch in our (Air BnB) apartment in Mexico. The people you meet on these trips are always cool, and it’s sad saying goodbye. We had a great week with the crocs and it was good to see Gambit again and Fireball, two crocodiles I have gotten to know through the years, they are such amazing animals. I also finally got the chance to finally see a manatee out here, it was an animal I have been really wanting to see but never got the opportunity. It was a long wait- after 5 or 6 seasons, I saw that beautiful mermaid.

So, going to stop here because I need to get back at it. And I am going to try and keep you guys updated a bit more on this journey of mine, even if I can’t get to editing vlogs for you guys, I will start writing in this journal more. I have some crazy projects that I want to do and will be sharing as I move forward. But until then, wishing you guys an amazing summer, and I promise to keep you guys posted more.

Shark Diving's Dirty Little Secret

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Emma the tiger shark gut checking me. Thankfully I safely pulled out my arm in time.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

The hiding.

In the shark diving world, especially among those of us who work with and feed sharks, there’s something we rarely talk about publicly. Something we keep to ourselves, behind the curtain.

It’s what you might call the dirty little secret of our industry:

Shark Feeders getting bitten.

We don’t talk about it in public.

We don’t post about it (other than this blog post).

We don’t share it with guests.

It’s only discussed among ourselves, quietly, or with dark humor.

We laugh about it.

We call each other out when someone really screws up.

We give each other tight hugs when we know one of us dodged a bullet.

It’s the game within the game.

David working with a tiger shark at Tiger Beach, Bahamas.

Now that my son David is deep in this world, it weighs even heavier on my mind.

I keep asking myself, why do we hide it?

Is it really about protecting the shark diving industry?

People aren’t going to stop diving with sharks because they hear someone got bit.

If anything, it probably fuels the interest in going on these dives.

Shark divers are definitely wired a little differently.

David working with a great hammerhead off Bimini, Bahamas.

But we tell ourselves it’s about protecting the sharks’ reputation.

We don’t want these bites added to shark attack databases that the media loves to quote.

We don’t want certain so-called "shark experts" (yes, I’m thinking of someone specific) using these stats to spark more fear and misrepresent the animals we love so much.

Every time I’m in the water with sharks, I feel like they’re teaching me something.

If I’ve been bitten, and yes, I have, it’s because I was a slow learner.

One of my personal teaching experiences from a reef shark back in 2010.

In my 17-years career, after thousands of feeding dives with tigers, lemons, and other species, I’ve been bitten four times.

All superficial thankfully. Nothing serious.

I wear those scars like reminders for being a slow learner.

I’m grateful to have spent so much of my life with these animals.

Grateful that I was good enough to have made a career out of it.

So why do we keep it quiet?

Because we love sharks.

Because when we get bitten, we know it’s our fault.

Because we don't want anyone blaming the shark for a mistake that was human.

Because when you work with predatory animals, even dogs, you eventually get bitten.

And when you work with sharks, the risk is simply part of the deal.

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David learning hard lessons of his own with a great hammerhead off Bimini, Bahamas.

It’s always been a game of… It’s not if, it’s when.

And that’s how it will always be.

So the next time a shark feeder gets bit, expect to hear NOTHING about it.

Not on the news. Not on social. Not even in a blog post.

Because, well.

It will always be… our dirty little secret.

Thanks for reading.

To my fellow feeders and dive family… stay safe, stay sharp, and love you guys.

Those CUTE Little Freaking Birds!

I have been a little behind on blogs and vlogs this month. Mostly because I have been home and not doing much these two months - which I am loving, BUT, it is the calm before the storm, because once May gets here - it is on, travel season starts… and it’s pretty much non-stop until December. I am looking forward to the craziness of it, but of course, nervous about it as well. Because it is show time. Time to get back into it and show everyone the animals they are all hoping to see.

Of course I love it, I love being able to show people wildlife, and I LOVE seeing wildlife, and new places, and old friends and meeting new ones. Shit! I love everything about this life, and this world. So anyway, back to this blog. An opportunity that arose for us, was getting an invite by my buddy Hector Astorga, to visit Santa Clara Ranch and photograph song birds in one of their morning blinds.

Hector is a great shooter and when he is not off on one of his adventures, manages the ranch here. And this ranch is amazing. It is a great birding destination, and South Texas wildlife spot as well, they get white-tailed deer, peccary, rabbits, the occasional ground squirrels and one of the coolest of our South Texas animals, the bobcat. We are always hoping for a bobcat to show up, such amazing wildcats.

However, hanging out in the blinds at the watering hole to photograph the song birds that come in to get a drink and cool off is really, really cool. The photo opportunities are endless, and I truly enjoy photographing these quick little beauties. Plus, I got to hang out with my Sophia, which is ALWAYS the very best.

My girl sitting in the blind, wishing a bobcat would walk out of the bushes.

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Hanging out with Hector is always amazing, nothing like trading stories with a fellow traveler and all around badass. We arrived really early and started prepping our gear, as he set up the feeding perches. The thing about capturing unique and beautiful birding images at places like these, is not just taking your camera and photographing a bird. It is also about the set up. From making sure the drinking pond was perfect and full, to setting up the perfect perch, that is both pleasing to look at and just the right distance for that perfect shot, without trees and shrubs in the background to distract from the image. You are creating wildlife art, and it is so much fun.

Greenjay, the stars of South Texas.

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When we arrived it was still dark, and the sky was overcast. We were hoping the sun would burn off those clouds, which thankfully happened.

While we were waiting for better light and more birds to arrive, and that elusive bobcat. We were entertained by Hector calling in roadrunners with perfectly imitated sounds of a female roadrunner. Talk about awesome, the boys completely lost their minds trying to find that flirty female. We ended up with three road runners hanging around all day.

Roadrunners.

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As the morning wore on, the light got better and better for us, and it was on. We photographed the different song birds that dropped by to steal some food from our perches, as well as drink a few drops from the pool. A few of them dropped in for a quick bath. All of it made for amazing photo opportunities…

Northern cardinals.

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Greenjay.

As the day wore on, we lost hope of the elusive bobcat showing his face, however we were treated to a few rabbits and some peccaries that eventually showed up to say hi. One of the female peccaries had just had babies so we were hoping for a shot at photographing those little guys, but she never felt comfortable enough to bring them close.

arguing peccary.

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Peccary, aka; javalina.

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We broke for lunch and then called it a day. Out of town family had shown up for the weekend, and my Sophia was itching to get back there to be a little girl, and have some fun with her cousins. So we thanked Hector for a great day, and said goodbye to this amazing place, and are counting down the days till we can return to this ranch for more amazing moments with South Texas wildlife and those cute little freaking birds!

Black-throated sparrow.

Long-billed thrashers.

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Northern Cardinal and Long-billed thrasher.

Pyrrhuloxia, the desert cardinal.

Backyard Badasses!

So I am working on my macro game. Improving my wildlife photography is something I try really hard to do, and having any excuse to go outdoors, between travels, when I am home to photograph wildlife, is definitely a bonus. Well, a few months back, my Sophia asked me for a macro lens. I of course, thinking it was a good idea for her, and of course, secretly for me, decided to pick one up. I picked up a Canon 35mm macro 1:2.8. Which is a really nice lens, but of course, I want to pick up another one, like a 90mm macro for my next lens.

Anyway, I took my camera out back and decided to find some bugs to shoot. One of the first ones I found was this tiny little spider. I carefully captured him, and took it over to a set up I had on a table with some plants, along with a small table top tripod.

When I snapped those first few images I was at first blown away with the detail the 35mm lens could capture of such a small creature. The spider was the size of a tiny mosquito. But what blew me away even more was the colors of this spider, it was stunningly beautiful. The species is called an orchard spider.

It is mind blowing how amazing the color patterns are on such a tiny animal. It didn’t make sense to me why nature would create such an amazing looking animal.

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Anyway, I enjoyed this photo session a lot. It takes a lot of work trying to capture nice images of these tiny life forms. I still have a lot to learn about macro photography and I am excited to learn more about it. Of course, I am also doing this to learn more about it for underwater photography.

For me, it is all about improving my craft and getting better at photographing wildlife… all types of wildlife, both big and small. The next step for me is to learn how to do macro photography with stacking images in photoshop. That is when you can truly capture the amazing magic of this tiny world. And the way I see it - the more I learn, the more I will be able to help those that travel with us to improve their images on our trips. Until then, here are a few images I captured of these backyard badasses.

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The stand off.

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Images I Shared this week on Social Media

MARCH 10 - 16, 2019
I was going through images this week, I shared on social media. I always try not to repost images I have shared before, so that we are always putting out something new. The thing about social media is, images are lost in time. The speed of news and storytelling is always so fast, especially on Facebook, that most images never get seen. So, I thought I would try something new this weekend and share the images here in a blog.

Well not ALL the images I posted, but just the ones from this week’s stuff. March 10 - 16 to be exact. And just the header images, since I change them out, sometimes daily. Anyway, hopefully you will enjoy this and the short stories that went with capturing the images as well. As always my friends, thank you for reading and viewing my content.

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SAIL

This capture was from our December trip. I was trying get a different angle of Patches (the great hammerhead). I love this species, their dorsal fins are so impressive. This was the first day we had her on the trip, and it during our morning dive. The thing was, we had crap weather the day before, so there was a lot of debris and sand flying around still. So the images I captured were just coming out horrible. I loved the image, but when I went to process it in photoshop, it was just coming out blah, so I decided to try playing with it in black and white, and it seemed to work. Sometimes, when you think an image is lost, try a little creativity and you never know.

This was taken on the same day, later in the afternoon when the currents and the dust settled. We were in a very shallow spot, maybe 18 feet deep, and I was coming up at the end of the dive. I was hanging on the down line, after I believe, over an hour long dive and Patches was swimming around. Because of the earlier currents, and the previous days bad weather, the ocean floor was laid out in a beautiful perfect looking pattern. I saw her swimming below and swam out to snap this image of her from above, while she slowly swam by.

Dirty Girl

Keeping with the shark theme right now, this is Dirty Girl, one of the larger tigers hanging around tiger beach. The first season, we met her she was a very fiesty girl. Normally the tigers are just fiesty around the feeders, but she was very aggressive around the guests as well. I had to keep a very close eye on her when she would swim in. I later learned, due to the way she was behaving, that she was in season and was maybe lashing out at everyone, believing they were trying to mate with her. And if you ask, how do I know she was in season? There is something tigers do, when they are in season which is super unique, that is hard to explain without video…and she repeatedly did it.

I am pretty sure I have shared this top image of a mom and calf in the past, however, I think I had shared in on one of my pages, and not all three. Yes I have three FB social media pages, one personal, one for our company, SDM adventures, and one for my photography, Eli Martinez. If you are not following those pages, it is a must… for awesome content, news, stories and a devastatingly handsome photographer! AND NO… I am not biased at all when I say that last bit. lol. Anyway, back to reality and my story…

Visiting Tonga and seeing first hand the relationship between mothers and calves is something you will never forget… you can feel the love in the water. The babies are babies, playing around, dancing, and sometimes breaching. The mothers are normally resting below. The babies need more air then the mothers, so they come up quite often, play for a couple of minutes then return down to her, touching her, getting reassuring nudges from her, and when they rise up together, they are constantly touching and bonding all the way up. It is so damn beautiful.

Another shot I posted this week, here is a good angle to see the touching bond between the mother and calf as she comes up for a breath of air. I snapped this image then had to swim like mad, because they were rising up and I was in their direct path. Well her direct path.

This was a shot from our April 2018 visit to Machu Picchu in Peru. Still one of the coolest places I have ever visited. The magic of this place is indescribable. I wish I had done more homework when we planned the original trip, because there are nearby rainforests that I could of visited for shots at birds, monkeys and bears. Next time… we are planning a return trip to the area, possibly even organizing a trip for it. Between the rainforests and Machu Picchu, it is an epic trip.

One of my most favorite days in the water. We encountered a pod of spotted dolphins off Bimini. This was during a trip we run for them. We had to cancel this season’s trip, there was not a lot of interest in it. Not sure why? It’s an awesome trip. Anyway, we had a pod of very friendly dolphin’s hanging around for over an hour with us. Super social, some were mating, which I captured with stills. I was on fire about that. This group of dolphins swam up to me and went through me. Of course, I WISH, they would of done that with the sun on my back, instead of in front of me, because it yellowed out this image badly. So if they had done this with the sun on my back I would of had amazingly beautiful blue water, with these dolphins, instead I had this greenish looking tint in the background.

I tried to get as low as possible when I photographed this giant river otter in the Pantanal, Brazil. It is difficult when you are in a moving boat, trying to photograph a fast moving subject. But with a high shutter speed and ridiculous amounts of sunlight (It was freaking hot and VERY sunny when we encountered these guys), I managed to capture a few images. This was captured while these guys were hunting.

Macro photography is new to me, but I fell instantly in love with it, when I decided to practice in my backyard, on this tiny guy. This orchard spider is no bigger than a mosquito, but I was blown away with how much color it had. LIKE WHY? Why is an animal so tiny and so colorful, it just didn’t make sense to me. So since this first session, I have gone on a crazed spider kick and will be posting a blog this week on some of my macro images I captured of this tiny predatory animals. The next level for me will be stacking images. I still have a lot to learn about it, but can’t wait to get into it. I know this is different for me, but as I travel on this photography journey of mine, learning how to shoot anything and everything when it comes to wildlife is a must, if I am ever going to be able to help someone improve their photography, especially when they are with us on our travels. I want our guests to have the best experience possible.

I saved the craziest for last. I went through my crocodile images and found one I hadn’t shared yet from our 2018 expedition. Crocodiles are such amazing photo subjects and are a must for all big animal photographers. They are big and scary looking, mostly slow moving, and will hang around for hours, giving you plenty of opportunities to capture some unique images or behaviors. I absolutely LOVE photographing them. You can do no wrong with these guys.

So there you go… a few of my images from this weeks posts. Hopefully you like what you see and will comment, share it, or at least give it a thumbs up. Thanks for visiting our website.

Hugs and I will hopefully see you out in the world.
- Eli

Black Bear Photo Gallery

We just added a new photo gallery to our Trip Report page. This was from our exploratory trip to the Outer Banks to photograph black bears. The population of bears here is the largest in the world. Normally black bears average from 300 to 600 lbs. The bears here can weigh anywhere from 600 to 1,200 lbs. The reason for this is, the bears here are not forced to hibernate like their West coast cousins, they can forage all year for food. Which allows them to get massive.

We went there in May when we had a break, and checked out what was going on. We were for sure not disappointed. What an amazing experience for the SDM crew. Click HERE to check out the gallery.

Tonga Humpback Whale Gallery 2018

I have been so behind on putting together photo albums from our expeditions. 2018 was a blur of back to back trips. I finally cut together a photo album from our Tonga expedition from this past August. What an amazing place Tonga is. The humpback whale action is so amazing, we had hours of encounters with moms and calves everyday. Anyway, I truly hope you enjoy the photo album. It was a lot of fun capturing these images. Hope you enjoy.

Norway Adventure Photo Gallery

So I finally got around to editing the majority of the images from our Norway trip and cut together an album I am happy with. I do admit, I really miss the crazy cold conditions we had while visiting Norway. I miss the crunching of the snow, the beautiful white powder everywhere, I miss photographing wildlife while the snow fell, and especially the tension that was building every time we all walked together with our group in the snow. Someone was always looking over their shoulder, for fear that a snowball fight might ensue. Lol, but I do miss the fun we had with our amazing group out there. Anyway, here is the album I cut together from the trip, I hope you enjoy.

Tiger Beach Photo Gallery's

January has always meant Tigers and Great Hammerheads to us. For the past 7 , or 8? Maybe 9 years (don’t remember exactly when we started, it’s been a while.), we have run our annual trip to Tiger Beach for tiger sharks, and over the past 5 seasons great hammerheads. It has been an amazing time of year for us, with both highs and lows, because you never know what you are going to get when it comes to the weather. Some seasons we get perfect conditions, other seasons we get crap weather with challenging swells. The one thing that we have been fortunate to do is dive with big tigers and great hammerheads on ALL our January trips. Not that we haven’t on our October and December trips, because thankfully we have. But January is during the Bahamas winter season and you just never know what you are going to get. We kicked off 2019 with two back to back trips and here are a few images from our time spent here. I do hope you enjoy. Thanks again to our friends who joined us on these trips, you guys are amazing and we couldn’t do this without you. BIG HUG my friends.

Trip one. January 19 - 26, 2019.

Trip Two January 27 - February 3, 2019