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Day Two Was A Lot of Fun.

sperm whales poop before they dive down to the depths.

Day two on the water. It was a good day, and the weather stayed beautiful all day. I am super happy about that. We immediately found the Utensils group of sperm whales and decided to stay with this pod all day. There are quite a few pods around; some are not as friendly.

The utensils pod is one of the friendlier pods in this area, so we stayed with them, hoping that we would be treated to some epic interactions when they were done hunting for the day. Sadly the pod spent the entire day hunting, so all our interactions with the whales were very short.

It was still fun, but we are hoping for some solid interactions with the whales when they socialize. That is the stuff of dreams. The whales will play and roll and bite each other. Playfully, of course. It is a hell of a thing to witness and what I hope our guests will experience. It is pure magic when it happens.

We still have four days left, so hopefully, we will have an opportunity to see the whales interacting.

At the end of the day, we were motoring over to a whale that had just surfaced when we heard a loud bang. Sadly our motor died. A piston rod broke and tore a big hole in the engine block. So we had to have our boat towed in. She is a good little boat, and we will miss her. We will head out tomorrow on her sister ship. It is a bit bigger and slower, but she will do. As long as we find the whales, it is all good!

Heading out tomorrow a bit later in the morning to change things up and see if we can get some socializing whales. Fingers crossed.

Thank you for reading.

Dominica... Day One was a Good Day.

Sperm whale briefing before we headed out to sea.

I am back in Dominica for another week of sperm whale diving. I really like this place. I mean, what is not to like… a beautiful island with resident populations of sperm whales.

The place is HEAVEN.

Today was day one of our trip, and I am super happy to report that we had fun encounters with some friendly whales. The whales were hunting today, so we did not spend much time with them. When the whales are hunting, they go down and spend between 45 minutes to an hour at depth hunting squids. When they finally do come up, it is short.

They come up for around ten minutes, replenish their oxygen supply, and possibly help feed the youngsters in the family pod. Young sperm whales cannot go as deep as the adults, so they stay shallow, listening for sonar clicks from the adults below, to follow them around.

Sperm whales live in pods, except the males; they are solitary, or form bachelor groups. The sperm whales in a pod all help to raise the young. Each female will feed milk to any baby in their pod that is too young to hunt for themselves. It is wonderful.

The morning was fantastic. The seas were calm, and the sun was out. It was a great start. But that quickly ended when a tropical depression moved through the area in the late afternoon.. and just like that, our beautiful day ended.

Thankfully the storm passed towards the end of the day. We had a good morning with plenty of whale action in good light and pretty water. It was an excellent start to the week. We returned to port in the middle of the storm, and we all rushed to our rooms to dry up and download our images and video from today.

Day one was a success… looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings.

Until then, thanks for reading.

Sea Bears!!!

Just finished up our beluga whale and polar bear expedition out of Churchill, Canada, and all I can say is WOW, WOW, WOW! What an amazing trip. I have been trying to figure out what to write, and how to write it. The beluga boarding was beyond words amazing, and the polar bear action was… well I decided to write a blog about the bears first, because the different experiences were just so overwhelming for me. In a good way.

When I am out in nature and around wildlife, it recharges my damaged soul. I realize how much I need to be around animals. However, sometimes it can over power my senses and I get lost on how to feel, because the fire is so strong. So sometimes nature leaves me emotionally drained.

This week was one of those trips that leaves me drained (in a good way). So many amazing moments out there, I wasn’t sure what to share, so I am sharing a few highlighted moments from this trip, that I will write over a few blogs for you guys.

For now… Day One!

We saw bears every day of the trip, both in the water, and on land. Some of the bears were probably the same bears from the previous days, so I am not really sure how many different bears we encountered. For sure 6 different ones. The number didn’t matter to me, just seeing one bear this trip would have been a thrill for me.

I mean it’s a freaking polar bear!

Polar bears are the largest land predators on the planet. They are massive animals. The largest sea bear ever recorded weighed more than two thousand pounds and stood twelve feet tall. Now that is a big bear.

It is so humbling seeing one of these bears up close… pure magic.

Our first day on the water we went out at the end of the day, and we encountered three bears on the rocks. One was in the water swimming, the others were on land, hunting for Arctic tern chicks. The birds were losing their minds, dive bombing on the bears. The bears would just continue sniffing around, every once in a while acknowledging the birds stabbing them in the head.

One of the bears we photographed was in the water, it was watching the belugas and the belugas were watching the bear. I do not think they felt threatened by the bear, because the whales were coming in close. The bear made one attempt to try and catch one, after that it returned to shore, and went after easier prey, Arctic tern chicks.

polar bear unsuccessfully stalking belugas.

We left the bears to go find belugas to photograph, but after we were done, we returned to the point right at sunset and found two of the three bears again. They were still there being harassed by the terns. We were just going to watch them for a few minutes and then call it a day, however, the sun was going down fast and the sky was turning gold. So instead of motoring back to port we asked Jostlen, our boat captain and guide to stay a bit longer.

Of course she said yes, and it became a mad rush to try and position our boat to get the bears with that beautiful light behind them.

She gave it a try. We motored our boat as close as we safely could to the point. There are lots of boulders just below the surface that we can not see, and smacking into one, right at sunset with sea bears around is not a smart thing to do. But she tried the best she could.

The light was fading fast and it really is a hurry up and wait game when it comes to wildlife photography. I was running out of time. The bears were in the right spot for a nice image, but were not perfectly positioned. They had their backs to the camera, or their head was down buried in the rocks.

It was a challenge.

Finally the two bears positioned themselves decently so that I could pop a couple of shots. Thankfully it worked and I was able to snap a couple of keepers. They were not perfect and I would of loved to have been closer to the animals. But that is nature and I will take what I can get.

We finished up our first day of the expedition. I was on fire thinking about the next few days and the adventure that was in front of us. I had no idea how amazing this week was going to be.

Until the next blog. Thanks for reading!

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.

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.

Crocodile Diving in Tulum and Helping Sharks!

We ended our whale shark expedition and had a couple of days to relax and just do nothing if we wanted to, but that just wouldn’t be our style, the Yucatan is rich with animal life and we needed to go and find something wild.

BUT FIRST…

fishermen turning in their tools of the trade.

We said goodbye to our friends on Isla Mujeres, and then a few hours later, we attended a ceremony to celebrate, and kick off the new Shark Eco-tourism project on Isla Mujeres. It is an exciting project that will hopefully change the lives of many people for the better, and save thousands of sharks. The Saving our Sharks conservation group has secured funding and has reached an agreement with the commercial shark fishermen cooperative to try ecotourism vs. Shark Fishing. This is a three year project that will hopefully create annual sustainable income for the fishermen by taking tourists out to see sharks vs killing them.

Talking to the shark fishermen about my experiences with eco-tourism and it’s financial importance to the local economies.

There are many stages to this project and it is going to take a lot of work to make it happen, but it is exciting to think that if it does work, real change will have happened here… for the people, for the sharks, for the island and for our oceans.

I sit on the board for this organization and am extremely proud to be a part of it and will do what I can to try and help it succeed. Anyway, I am going to write many blogs about this project, because there are so many layers to it, but first… an adventure post.

Tamara and Sophia prepping tanks at the cenote.

After we left Isla Mujeres, Mari, Sophia and I had a couple of days to rest and relax before we went home, but decided instead to check out some spots that I had been hearing about. Originally we wanted to go back to Punta Laguna, near Coba to photograph spider monkeys and howler monkeys, but instead decided to check a croc spot in a cenote in the city of Tulum.

Tulum is not really a place I spend much time at. I am not really a fan of how fast the place is growing. I liked it the way it used to be, as a small one horse town. Now, it’s turned into little Hollywood, just not my thing. A lot of people like it, but I like smaller places; Less people, more nature. But Tulum does have some Cenotes with pretty exciting wildlife in them, and that is why I am here.

I had been hearing stories about a morelet’s crocodile named Panchita, made famous by the locals, that was hanging around one of the cenotes in town. I filed the story away in the back of my mind as a one day I will check it out.

Slowly more and more photos and videos started surfacing of Panchita and that was it… I decided we needed to check out. So I called up a friend who works in the area, and Maritza, Sophia and I went to see what it was the locals were raving about and yup, I am a fan.

Our buddy Tamara works with one of the local dive shops that specializes in cave diving and cenotes. She happily set us up to find this beautiful little croc. This was my first time seeing this species, so I was on fire to snap some images of the beauty. There was a very specific shot I was after, which is the crocodile ascending, to the surface from the depths below, with mangroves in the back ground. That is the shot I had in my mind’s eye.

One of the images I had envisioned.

The morelet’s croc is a small species, they do not get very big, maybe six feet on average. The one here in the cenote is extremely habituated, and super very well behaved. She is used to seeing snorkelers and swimmers all day long, and everyday, so she is very tolerant.

However most people who visit this particular cenote are not expecting to see a croc, and react in one of two ways, either with fear or fascination. I watched from below on scuba as she was swimming around on the surface, tourist snorkelers swimming all over the place, most not knowing she was there. But the moment they would see here… it turned to complete chaos . A couple was snorkeling right next to her and never saw her. The guy turned and saw her, and freaked the hell out. He panicked, and then his girl panicked and they both swam away from her as fast as possible. Thankfully there are guides there to make sure no one really harasses or grabs her.

Of course, one of the guides thought I was too close and aggressively asked me to move back, which I did. But moments later allowed his snorkeling guests to come in and see her as they finlessly kicked and flailed towards her, trying to get a closer look. Eight snorkelers all flapping around trying to look at her. She tired of them, and then tucked herself away into an area where they could not get close to her, because they were on snorkel. She has a few hiding spots like that through out the cenote to evade her gawking fans so she can hang out in peace, which is cool.

Darter swimming. Really want another shot at photographing this beauty.

She tucked up on one of her spots, and we quietly entered to watch her for a bit and then left her alone to rest, and went off to find one of the other residents of this cenote, a diving bird called a Darter, or Anhinga, or a snake bird. These birds dive down into the water and swim around hunting for fish, they have a snake like neck that they coil and use their beak like a spear, piercing the fish when they hunt. Their bill has serrated edges to keep the fish from sliding off once it is stabbed. Wicked cool birds.

The bird was hunting for fish and it allowed me to follow it along, I tried hard to get a close up shot of it underwater, but I never did get close enough. I got a few shots, but none that I was excited about. Looks like I need to get back there, and soon!

One of my favorite shots of the day.

After I finished dancing around with my bird, we went back to check out the croc and sure enough it was on the move again, so we followed her around and then it happened, Panchita dove down, and slowly rose back up. I was on fire, snapping shot after shot, hoping that one or two of them would come out. She swam around for a while longer, dropping down a few more times, I fired away. I was not sure how the images were going to come out, because she dropped a few times in spots that were pretty shadowy so I wasn’t sure if they were going to come out.

A few times she rested in spots on the surface where the sun light was directly overhead and I snapped a few of those shots, hoping one or two of them would work out. I could of stayed with this beautiful croc for hours, but my Sophia was turning blue from the cold water. I had not realized it had almost been three hours of diving.

We called it a day and headed back to the spot where we exited the cenote. Right by the steps, I looked down and got one more final treat, a blue crab had climbed out of its hiding hole into the light and was walking along the bottom on a boulder covered in green algae, giving a beautiful color contrast to its brilliant blue body. I stopped to snap a couple of shots of it before it scurried off.

I surfaced and there was Tamara with her gopro in hand asking the three of us if we were happy or extremely happy. The three of us at the same time said, “extremely happy”.

It was such a good day and such a good dive. Thanks again to Tamara, we are already looking forward to our return to this crazy town, for another shot at this perfect croc.

Thank you for reading.

A trio of Badass ladies; Tamara, Maritza, and Sophia.

Final Day and Final Thoughts!

We ended our trip here on Isla Mujeres with a bang! We headed out in a lumpy sea. Sadly it was bumpier than I would have liked it to be. I was hoping for a calm, slow rolling sea, like our day one. But nope, we had some strong winds, which kicked things up a bit.

That is nature, and not much we can do about that. Despite the bumps, the sharks had been found pretty quickly, but unfortunately, we got there late. There were a lot of boats around them, and after a couple of jumps, we decided to get out of the area to try and find a spot with some shark action and fewer boats.

It didn’t take long. We found an area with not as many sharks but much less boat traffic, so we decided to try our luck with the sharks here. It was a win… we had a lot of good encounters, and it was a lot of fun.

One by one, the tourist boats left until it was just our two boats and a bunch of whale sharks. It was a magical way to end the trip. We spent our remaining time left with one shark. The shark was super relaxed, it would coke bottle on the surface, then swim down deep for a minute or two, then it would return to the surface and begin coke bottle feeding again. Coke bottling is what we call it when the shark stops swimming and stays in one spot, to suck feed.

It is the best interactions when they do that.

So our two boats took turns swimming with this shark for over an hour. It was absolute MAGIC! Finally, the shark stopped feeding, swam down, and disappeared. The few of us in the water swam back to the boat, all of us on cloud nine. Just on fire!

I was about to climb up on our boat when I turned around and see… the shark had resurfaced. It followed us to the boat as if she was saying, “Hey, where did you all go?”

Damn, if I do not get emotional when things like that happen to me, to us.

It is sometimes truly overwhelming, we still have so much to learn about these animals.

We finished the day with a fun snorkel on a reef near Contoy island. That is always a great way to say goodbye to this very special place.

Thank you guys for reading, and to my friends who joined us out there, thank you so much for making this trip and this week so flipping amazing… a big hug and safe journeys home.

Hope to see you all again and soon.

Yesterday was All about Manta Rays... Today was all about the SHARKS!

1/320, f9, ISO 1000

We had an amazing day with the whale sharks today. There was a lot of sharks, all ram feeding on the billions of fish eggs floating on the surface. The action was so damn good. I am over the moon with how much fun we all had today.

We did have some major cloud coverage though and the water was a bit dark, and with all the fish eggs murking everything up, it made photography a bit challenging. So I decided to shoot video instead of stills. I did snap a few stills, but not as many as I usually shoot on a day like this. Video in these conditions is a lot more forgiving.

We all had a blast swimming with the sharks today, and everyone had a chance to capture something fun. I know I did.

I did not post a blog yesterday because the signal at our hotel was pretty glitchy. Every time I tried to log on, I got kicked out. But it gave me a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep.

1/320, f9, ISO 1000

A quick update for you; Rooster showed up! I have seen this shark every summer for the past 15-ish years. I was super happy to see her. I finally got an ok photo of her dorsal fin. I would love to get a better shot of her fin above the water surface, so you can see why we dubbed her Rooster. And I know Rooster is a boy name, but it’s all about equality right now, so it’s fitting. LOL

1/320, f9, ISO 1000

DAY TWO

1/400, f9, ISO 800

Yesterday was day two of our expedition and it was all about the mantas. There was so many manta rays swimming around, it was pure magic. Today we hardly saw any mantas, which I find interesting. Where did they all go?

In the area we were hanging out at yesterday, there wasn’t very many sharks, which was surprising. But that was fine with me, variety is great on big animal dives, and manta rays are really exciting animals to swim with.

The few sharks that were there, were all coke bottle feeding, and that made for EPIC photo opportunities.

The day was just great, we had clear skies and blue water, and the action was top notch, the kind of stuff that dreams are made of. It was a hell of a day at sea.

1/400, f9, ISO 800

Ok, its 11:30PM and tomorrow is our final of the day of the trip, so I is going to bed. Super tired today, but wanted to get a quick blog up. Until tomorrow… FYI; gonna try going live on FB again. I went live this morning, but FB kicked me out pretty quick.

Day One Was Fun... Love Dem Sharks!

Canon 5D M4, with an 8-15MM fisheye, in an Aquatica housing - my settings were 1/400, f9, ISO 800

Day one off Isla Mujeres for whale sharks is in the books.

It was a really good day, and the conditions were amazing. Thankfully there was quite a few sharks out here, maybe around fifty whale sharks. It was not the hundreds that we normally see out during this time of year. But it is early in the week, and I am predicting that the number of sharks will keep increasing over the next few days.

We have had the same captains for our trips for the past 12 years. Captain Gabby and Rami greeted us at the pier this morning and asked Mari where Sophia was, she pointed her out, they did not recognize the young lady before them. She started coming out with us on our whale shark trips when she was 5 years old, she is now 16 years old. Because of covid, it has been two years since they have seen her. They were blown away. Captain Gabby got a bit teary eyed. It was so sweet.

Heading out this morning.

Super happy with the day we had today, our captain told us that the shark action the previous weeks had been super slow. But that is nature, you never know what she is going to gift you with. Thankfully we arrived at the right time… and if this week goes the way I think it will, it should be a good week.

Today, it is official…when I jumped in the water with the sharks this morning, that made 18 years of swimming with the whales sharks in Mexico.

18 years!!!

We started running these trips back in 2005, and here we are all these years later, still out here, and still enjoying the hell out of it. I really love being in the water with these animals, it is still a lot of fun to me. That has not changed, and I don’t think it ever will.

Canon 5D M4, with an 8-15MM fisheye, in an Aquatica housing - my settings were 1/400, f9, ISO 800

Ok, headed to bed, just thought I’d share a little bit of our day’s adventure, and a couple shots I captured. There is a lot of food in the water so the vis and the images are a bit dirty, but that is why the sharks aggregate together in these kind of numbers. Lots of munchies and crunchies to eat.

Day two tomorrow.

Until then… good night my friends.

Arrival Day... Whale Sharks off Isla Mujeres Begins!

Today is arrival day… a new adventure begins. We are on Isla Mujeres Mexico to swim with whale sharks and if we are lucky manta rays. I am looking forward to this week and the magic we will all hopefully experience.

Last nights sunset. Isla Mujeres does not disappoint.

We have been running this trip every summer since 2005. So when we hit the water tomorrow morning it will officially be 18 seasons that we have been running this experience. 18 years of whales sharks, is pretty cool. It is often the same sharks that return to this spot year after year, so I am hoping to see if I can recognize any of the individuals that come here. It is really difficult because they all look the same. One whale shark I can easily recognize is one we have dubbed Rooster, he has a shredded dorsal fin, that looks like a roosters comb.

WOW, 18 years. So much has changed since we first started offering this trip. It was really raw and wild back then. We first ran these trips out of Holbox, Mexico. Back then there was only three or four hotels on the island. Now, there are at least 30 to 40. So much has changed. I remember, trash was a problem on the island back then, I wonder what they do now?

We changed island locations about 12 years ago when the whale sharks started spending more of their time in the Caribbean sea vs the Gulf of Mexico. Which was fine by me, I prefer the sharks in blue water vs. the green water, plus the blue water is warmer than the Gulf. It can be a bit chilly.

Anyway back to today…

I picked up our friends this morning from the Cancun airport and brought them to the island. Arrival day is always a bit hectic, but thankfully it ran really smoothly - No ones flights were delayed, and everyone’s bags showed up when they got off the plane. When I arrived at the airport, everyone was already through customs and waiting outside, made for a fast pickup and smooth transfer to the island.

Van ride to the ferry.

We drove to the ferry terminal, chatting it up, and getting to know each other a little better.

We have some returning friends on the trip and a few new faces. It is always fun meeting new people and seeing old friends when they show up on our trips, it often feels more like family reunions rather than wildlife trips sometimes. Today was one of those days.

Anyway, its late… I am going to keep this short as it is 11:50 at night and we have to wake up at 6:40am for a quick breakfast at 7 and then out on the boat at 8. I am hoping for a great day with the sharks.

Day One begins!

More tomorrow… thanks for reading.