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Final Trip of the 2023 Season!

We just returned from our final trip of the 2023 season.

Tigers and Great Hammerheads in the Bahamas.

It was bitter sweet.

It has been a long and year wonderful year.

I am grateful to everyone who has traveled with us. I am grateful to everyone who has followed our journey.

I am thankful that we are able to share so much magic with so many wonderful people.

This job has been a dream and I am filled with gratitude that I get to do this everyday.

Showing people animals and amazing places has become more than a job to me. Yes it is my passion, but I also feel it is my duty.

My responsibility.

My life’s work is to share and show people what is left of our wild places, and the animals that call those places home.

Hopefully these places will remain wild forever. Humans are so greedy for land and for progress that I don’t know if they will.

But as long as I have breath, I will continue sharing and showing our wild places to people to hopefully spark the need to protect what is left.

It’s an uphill battle, but it is worth it. Animals are worth it. The Earth is worth it, and people are worth it.

The world is full of magic my friends… My dream is to help keep it that way.

Going to be sharing a lot of highlights with you all as we near the end of 2023 .

Until the next post, thank you for reading and sharing this journey with me.

Virtually and out in the world… I appreciate you.

Tiger and Great Hammerhead Group Photo. Final one for 2023.

Bad Bears... Bad Bears... Whatcha Gonna Do when they Come for You???

July 24, 2023 - Damn what a day. We started our day with a sad but amazing morning watching the polar bear police and wildlife management tranquilize two bears. A mom and her three year old cub.

They had become problem bears. Sneaking into town at night and going through the garbage.

The polar bear police had set up traps to capture them, but they were not working.

So sadly the bears had to be captured the hard way.

We had just finished breakfast and were out for a stroll when we saw a helicopter in the distance. Underneath the chopper we could see the two bears running for their lives by the train tracks.

We jumped out of the Falcon, our trusty steed, and watched the story unfold safely from the distance. Thankfully we all had long lenses and were able to document this exciting capture. Of course I only had my 100-400mm with me and I definitely needed more lens to document it properly, but I am happy with what I was able to capture.

The helicopter was following the bears, and the bears were running back and forth trying to get away, but they couldn’t. By the time we got there, the bears were exhausted.

The mom and cub. Both are exhausted and stressed from the chase. You can see the dart hanging on the mom’s butt in this shot.

They were using the helicopter to get close to the mother so that they could tranquilize her first. After they shot her, it didn’t take long for her to go down.

The loyal cub stayed by her side the whole time.

Once she was out, the rangers came in and shot the cub up close with a dart, that quickly knocked him out.

I felt bad for the bears. But unfortunately it was necessary. If the bears continued sneaking into town, eventually they would run into someone and an accident could happen and the bears would have to be put down.

So it is best to capture them, lock them up for a week or two, and make the experience as negative as possible, so that when the bears are released they will not want to return to town anymore.

At least in theory they won’t.

The moment, Shantel, the wildlife ranger shot the bear from the helicopter. I got lucky and captured it on my phone.

Once they were sure the bears were knocked out, they brought out a stretcher and hand carried the mom first to the back of a truck that was fitted with special wheels to ride on the rail road tracks.

She was big.

When they got the bears to the compound, they weighed them. The mom weighed in at 600 plus pounds and the cub weighed more than 400.

The ranger rode with the mom bear, keeping an eye on her while they she being transferred.

Once they got the railway truck to a level road they transferred the bears to the back of the ranger’s trucks and off they went to the compound where they will keep them.

The locals call it Polar Bear Jail.

I have been traveling to Churchill for years. You hear about these bear captures, but I had never seen it. It was amazing to watch it all first hand.

I was torn on how to feel about it.

I felt bad for the bears… They do not know they are doing anything wrong. They are just being bears and living in a world that they do not understand.

On the other hand, I also get what the authorities are trying to do. They are trying to keep both people and the bears safe.

So it is a necessary evil.

They don’t want to do this to them. But when you have a town full of people to protect, it has to be done.

We watched the bears get driven off, all of us filled with emotions at what we all just experienced. We silently wished the bears well.

It was a happy/sad moment.

I just hope that the bears will remember this experience and never return to town again.

Mountain Gorilla Trip Report

We just posted a trip report from our 2023 June Mountain Gorilla and Chimpanzee expedition to Uganda. It was an amazing trip with so much magic happening everyday.

It is so hard to put into words, just how special Uganda is. There is so much wildlife here, its mind blowing.

I put up a photo trip report up for you guys. I hope you enjoy!

Magic Moment!

June 30, 2023 - The day all of us were looking forward to was finally here. We were going to see mountain gorillas. This was my second visit to Bwindi to see gorillas, but it felt like the first. The feeling of being around these great animals is so hard to explain, but I will try.

We set off into the mountains at 7am, all of us anxious and hopeful. Last year, the hike was all uphill to get to where the gorillas were. This year, it was all downhill. I loved that. Of course, it didn't mean it would be any easier. We still had to hack our way through the thick forest vegetation. There are no roads or trails in the rainforest. There is the occasional game trail that has been carved out by forest elephants, but other than that, we had to cut our own trail.

We hiked and hiked and hiked.

Zach and Alex… check out that view!

Three hours in, and still no signs of gorillas. All of us were exhausted, except Zach, but he is not well (lol). Finally, our guides made contact with the scouts that had set out at 6am to find the gorillas for us. They found the family we were looking for. The gorillas were nearby!

Our fatigue from the past three hours was quickly forgotten, and our energy renewed. The rush and excitement of seeing a mountain gorilla got us all fired up. We quickened our pace and kept on working our way through the bush. Finally, our guides stopped pushing forward and called us all over to them. There, sitting in the brush, was a gorilla.

It was a big female, she was so beautiful. She pulled a branch down and began eating the leaves off of it. We watched her in awe. Suddenly the forest came alive around us. We were surrounded by the gorillas. We couldn't see them because the vegetation was so thick, but we could hear them and occasionally see the brush moving.

They slowly started coming out of the bushes and walking around. One of them laid down nearby, and another walked over and started grooming it. The smiles on everyone's faces were priceless. This is what it is all about. Moments like this are what all of us live for.

I snapped away. Image after image. Occasionally putting my camera down to watch them interact. It was magic. There were baby gorillas playing and rolling around clumsily. A huge silverback was nearby, watching over the family. He was acting shy so we didn’t get any great images of him.

When you realize there are only a thousand mountain gorillas left in the world, seeing just one in the wild is truly a privilege. I looked around; we had a family of eleven gorillas around us.

I was in heaven.

There was a female in front of me eating, I kneeled down and started taking pictures of her. She stopped eating and sat there, watching me photograph her. Maybe it was the sound of my shutter that caught her attention, I am not sure. All I know is I stopped shooting to look back at her, and felt this rush of adrenaline, because I knew she was looking right at me. I was filled with so much love for this moment.

She got up and walked towards me. Our guide told me to calmly move out of her way. I rolled out of the way as she passed by me. She was inches away from me. I was on fire and wanted to just sit there and soak up that moment. But our time with the gorillas was almost up, so I quickly got up and went over to another gorilla and kept shooting…

The Ocean is Always Calling!

We all have dreams—especially us wildlife guys (and girls). We dream about traveling, hiking, and diving in unique places and sometimes not-so-amazing places - all in pursuit of finding elusive animals.

I love the land stuff; the forests, the mountains, the Arctic Tundra. There is so much majesty and mystery out there.

I can't get enough.

But… there is nothing in the world like the ocean, and all her magic and all her beauty, and all her secrets.

I dream a lot about the ocean and all the beauty swimming around within her belly.

With the ocean, you never know what she will gift you. It is a fantastic place, and every day is different — she will always surprise you.

But as impressive as the ocean is, she can also be cruel, and she will test a person's soul to see if they are worthy of her greatness.

I have spent countless hours on and in the ocean, and there have been many times when I wished I had never set one foot on a boat.

There have been moments when I cursed the ocean, winds, and the tides, afraid for my life.

I have prayed and begged to be back in the safety of dry land.

Wishing I had chosen rock climbing, or mountain biking, or basket weaving instead of ocean wildlife as my passion.

Of course, when it is all over, and I am dry again, like a true addict, I am already planning my next ocean adventure.

The ocean continues to call to people like me. There is a deep love for ocean wildlife and a need to see them and interact with them.

It pulls at my very soul.

It is tough to explain to people who do not dive for animals. Because unless you drop down and see them for yourself, you will never understand the greatness of nature and the ocean.

Out there in those waters, magic happens, and dreams come true.

Out there is a beauty, unlike anything you will ever see on land.

Under those waves, we are free, and sharing mere moments with sharks, whales, or a sea horse is worth all the ocean beatings, all the wind storms, and all the freezing rain a human soul can endure…

Damn it!

Now I am all fired up and itching to get back out there again.

2022 Highlight Reel

We just cut together a 2022 Highlight Reel. I wanted to put something together that showed the beauty and magic of our season. It was a hard video to create because we experienced so many amazing moments, and it was hard narrowing it down to just a few quick moments. But due to the song I chose to share this video with, I was forced to make hard decisions, and many other great moments were left out. So here it is… I truly hope you enjoy it.

As a Kid I wanted to Work with Wildlife!

anaconda in the Southern Pantanal, Brazil.

I travel - I keep visiting new places, and I keep seeking out new animals. It’s what I love to do, and it’s what I live for. As a young kid, I ate, slept, drank, and dreamed of wild animals. I always wanted to be around them. All my toys were animal toys (until Star Wars arrived, then it was all Star Wars stuff), and all my books were animal books. I would read stories about wildlife and the places you could find them. I dreamed of being there, of going there.

I grew up in rural South Texas; my views were of orange orchards, plowed fields filled with corn or melon (I still can’t stand melon to this day). There were small ranches, with horses and cattle peppering the area. We had one neighbor, the Curls. Bob Curl was an old horseman, he never liked me much, I always asked too many questions I guess. My days were spent outdoors, running around on dirt roads, looking for lizards, snakes, ground squirrels, and birds. It’s what I filled my days with.

When the evenings would come, the toads would come out, and I’d try to catch them. As the sun set, the light bugs lit up the sky, and I ran around trying to catch them too. Of course, when the light bugs would come out, I knew it was time to head inside and have dinner. I’d go in, hungry, sweaty, covered in dirt, runny nose, with a big smile on my face.

It was a good childhood.

Growing up I wanted to be a veterinarian, but not for cats and dogs. I never had much interest in that. I dreamed of being a vet that worked with wildlife. I wanted to go to Africa and care for lions, elephants, giraffes… animals like that. At the time, it was the only way I knew how to get into the game. I didn’t know about wildlife filmmaking or guiding, or photography. Being a vet was the one way I knew I would be able to get close, and be close to wildlife.

Photographing sperm whales off Dominica. Image by Jean Dubois

That was forty-something years ago, and here I am at the age of 51, still eating, sleeping, drinking, dreaming of wildlife and wild places, where I can go see animals.

As a kid, I wanted to be close to them, and that hasn’t changed. I can’t help it. It is just the way I am. My daughter Sophia has always joked, “there is close, and then there is Eli close.”

Having a bit of fun, sizing up an American crocodile off Banco Chinchorro, MX. Image by Mark Rangi

Dancing with my beloved tigers, Tiger Beach Bahamas. Image by Jack Meadows.

I just enjoy the feeling of being there and smelling that rare air. It is a fantastic feeling. Of course, I understand and respect when I have to keep my distance, and I do when I am supposed to. And there are some animals you just can’t and shouldn’t get close too… sadly. Lol. But those moments when I can be close, where there is no blue between us, or a silverback is walking just a few feet away… it is the best feeling in the world.

Of course, I have often been accused of being an adrenaline junky because of it, but I am far from that. I am just comfortable in that environment. It feels normal to me. It feels like I am home. Weird, I know, but I don’t have any other way to describe it.

With my partner in crime, Maritza Martinez. Tiger Beach Bahamas.

This year we are celebrating twenty years of running wildlife expeditions. It is crazy that I have made a career out of this, that showing people wild animals is my job. I am eternally grateful that I get to do what I do. I love helping people on their wildlife journeys, helping them make their dreams come true. Knowing that I am part of that makes me so happy, and gives me purpose.

Of course, without the love and support of my family, especially my wife, dad, and brother, none of this would have been possible. They believed in me and every single one of my crazy dreams. Why, I will never know. But they did.

As I write this blog, I wonder what compelled me to write this up. Then I remembered, it was a social media post that sparked it. Someone asked me to tell more of my story, so here it is. Well, a tiny piece of it. There is so much more there, motorcycle days, bull riding days, teenage years… but I don’t think this blog is the place to post those stories. But sharing where my crazy love for wildlife came from definitely is.

Giant anteater, Bonito, Brazil.

Writing this helped me to remember so many things I had forgotten about, so many great memories of my childhood started flooding back. Of course it wasn’t perfect, nobody’s is I guess. But the good for sure outweighed the bad, and the good is all I care about. It also helped me realize that this journey that I am on, the job that I have, the people that I share time with, and the wildlife I encounter - it has never been a career with wildlife I am chasing… it has always been about living out a little kid’s dreams.

Thanks for reading.

Happy New YEAR and 20 Years of Expeditions!

Well, a new year is here, and I am so grateful. Grateful to be alive and healthy, grateful that my loved ones are alive and healthy… and grateful for a new year full of possibilities and promise. 

This will be an exciting year, and I can't wait to kick it off and get out into the world again. 

I took a nice and much-needed break from travel and social media and just off-gassed from a long and fantastic season. 2022 was a tough and wonderful year.

On my personal journey, it was a challenging year, but on our professional one, it was an outstanding year with a lot of wildlife and beautiful moments out in the world; from orcas in Baja to mountain gorillas in Uganda, it was wild and unique and beautiful and just, Damn, Damn, Damn. 

We did so much traveling. The year was so taxing, and I did not keep up with my writing and posting toward the end. Unfortunately, it seems I have a track record of doing that. I start strong, but towards the end of the season, I end up just exhausted and not writing or editing videos as I should be. 

I apologize for that, and I will keep my postings much more regularly for you guys.

Anyway, onto 2023 and a new and magical year… It is here, and I am fired up for a new season of trips, especially since this is our 20th anniversary. Yes, sir, (or Ma’am), it has been 20 years of running trips, and I am completely blown away by that. 

Never in my wildest dreams would I have seen this in my future and what I would be doing with my life; organizing wildlife adventures and bringing people with me to experience these amazing animals. It is crazy.

Our first expedition, May 2003, for sand tiger sharks off North Carolina.

The reality is I could have never done this without you all. Thank you so much for allowing us to introduce you to these wild places and for trusting me with your time and lives. I am forever grateful to you all.

Above are a few group photos from past expeditions. Click the button to see a gallery of images from our years of adventures.

If I wanted to create a highlight reel of all the years we have been organizing trips, it would be a nightmare to figure out how to tell the story. There are so many memories and moments that we have experienced... Where would I start? 

All of it really feels like a dream. 

Of course, it wasn't a perfect 20 years, I did have some hard times in there, but the beauty and the magic definitely shined way brighter than those dark moments. But hey, that is life. Life will constantly challenge you, which is ok. Life is often so messed up that you might as well go right to the crazy. 

And crazy it has been.

With a lot of magic, and beauty mixed in there, with very special souls - of course, I am referring to the humans and the animals we have shared these adventures with. It has all been imperfectly perfect. The funny thing is I now realize that perfection comes in little moments, but I will take them all… All 20 years' worth of them.

It has been amazing, and thankfully it is not over. We are just getting started. 2023 is going to be another epic year, and I can't wait to get back out there with you all, sharing the stories and images from these places with you. 

So again thank you for sharing this journey with me, and reading our blogs and watching our videos, and just being a part of our crazy world. I will end this New Years' Blog here… wishing you all a Happy New Year! May it be filled with love, adventures, and magic.  

…with lots of love from the SDM Crew. 

Back to Writing... Sorry It has been a While.

Damn, what a year it has been. I realize I have not been updating my blog, so for those of you that read my blog, I apologize. The year has been busy, and I admit to being a bit overwhelmed with it all. The traveling, the wildlife, family, friends… all of it is taxing on the soul.

I love what I do. It truly is a privilege to travel around the world and hang out with amazing people, looking for wildlife to photograph. Telling stories and being a voice for the voiceless is my job. But damn, you do pay a price for life off the beaten path. Not being there for everything is definitely the most challenging part of this life. It is a knife in the gut.

But I am also addicted to nature, and adventure, and telling positive stories about wildlife. It's part of why I breathe. As a storyteller in this wildlife world, I get to sit in a different seat. My job is to share this world and try to help the reader slide into my mind and enjoy the journey and these wild places with me.

I am not sure if my writing style evokes any emotion from people, but I do try and capture my feelings when I am out there, and I hope that comes across in my writing. Still determining if it does, but gonna keep trying anyway.

So onto today's post.

I just got home from epic back-to-back trips… the first trip was to Churchill, Canada, for a chance to photograph polar bears in the snow. This is something I have dreamed of doing for many years. It was definitely worth the wait, and the experience exceeded my waking dreams.

What a special place Churchill is. This town and the people there are extraordinary. Everyone there lives with the knowledge that polar bears are all over the place. When I was there, they showed me a video of a polar bear trying to smash in a window at someone's house to try and get in their kitchen. That is a normal occurrence for them, no big deal.

They have a polar bear police unit that works 24-7.

It is insane… but it is also so damn cool! I freaking love it there and want to stay much longer. The idea that you are not free to go for a jog because you always have to be wary that the world's largest land predator might be sleeping on the side of the road, or behind a bush sounds like heaven to me.

More on this story and place later.

One last dance.

The second trip was to one of my favorite places on the planet… Tiger Beach. This was such a special trip for me because it was the official passing of the torch. I have been feeding and dancing with tiger sharks for over 14 years now, and this year I got to pass the bait box over to my son David. He has been feeding sharks for a few years now (mostly in Mexico), but this is his first full season working in the Bahamas with tiger sharks.

Pretty damn wild.

We got to both feed and work with the tigers on this trip, and it was truly a privilege to watch him work. Meanwhile, he was also enjoying sitting back and watching me work with the sharks -

…that was tripping him out, easy to forget its your old man down there dancing with tigers.

David dancing and rolling.

He has seen me work with tigers many times before, but this was the first trip where we were both there as equals… watching each other's backs, helping each other out, and feeling the fear and adrenaline that comes with intimately interacting with big predatory sharks.

We did a night shark feed, something we do on all our Tiger Beach trips. It is always one of the highlights of the trip. They are never easy because we are feeding tigers at night, with limited visibility. The guests love it, but for me, they have always been super intense. I looked at David and said, "You are doing the feed." He said ok, not really knowing what to expect. It was his first night feed.

We had four big tigers show up, and I watched his back on the box, knowing full well that he was in the arena on fire inside… clenched! His adrenaline was spiking hard. I have been in that seat many times and I know how gnarly it can be. This was his first, and with all those big tigers, it was an intense and exciting dive.

He killed it out there… masterfully working with these animals. It was magical to see. I am not gonna lie, my heart was in my throat a few times, but that is all part of the magic. It is a game of inches.

I want to keep writing, but going to cut these stories short…the photo trip reports are coming soon. This blog was more of my need to get back to writing and sharing stories with you all again on our website.

It has been too damn long.

So until the next one, my friends, thank you for reading.

Days Like Today Are Why I Want to Live Forever!

Day Six, our final day of the trip, and it was the BEST day of the trip too.

We left at 9am this morning and motored out to the South side of the island to listen for sperm whales. We knew the Utensils pod went south when the pilot whales arrived three days ago, but we were hoping they would come back.

The Utensils pod is one of the friendliest pods off Dominica, and is great for interactions. We dropped the hydrophone and listened, but zero clicks. No sperm whales were around. So we decided to head North and see if the sperm whales were on the other side of the island.

While in route, we found out why the sperm whales were gone from the South side. The pilot whales had returned. The pod we encountered on day three was back. When we found them three days ago, they were headed South and out into the Atlantic. The pilots returned and were now headed North.

At this point we knew any search for sperm whales would be difficult, so we decided to embrace what nature has presented to us and just hang out with the pilot whales.

I am so glad we did.

We positioned the boat 100 yards in front of the whales and killed the motor. The pilot whales did something we did not expect, they swam straight up to the boat, stopped swimming and all of them began spy hoping. We were all putting on swim gear, but this sort of stopped us in our tracks. What were they doing?

A quick video of the pilot whales behavior. I was torn between capturing topside and getting in the water, so its a short video.

A group of about thirty whales were all on the surface, not swimming, just hovering there by our boat, seemly taking turns sticking their faces out of the water, looking at us. It was insane!!!

I was torn between filming the spectacle and grabbing my kit and jumping in the water. Bill, our captain said he has never seen this behavior before. Not in the numbers that we were seeing today.

I captured a few stills, and tried to record a little bit of video, but my need to get in the water won me over, and I put the topside camera down and went to grab my swim gear.

I am trying really hard to find the words to describe what we all experienced today, it really is hard to find the words. To quote Jodie Foster from the movie Contact… “they should of sent a poet, no words.” I know it sounds cheesy, but the day was above and beyond anything I normally have experienced with whales.

The whales would hang out, then swim off. We would get back on the boat, get ahead of them and jump in again. The whales would swim back to the boat and interact with us again, and we did this over and over again for five hours straight.

The whale would swim up to us, roll, and play, and hang around us and then swim off again. Sometimes dropping down into the depths, other times just swim off into the distance. It was true magic.

After about three hours we decided to give them a break, eat lunch and just watch them from the boat. I was about to eat my wrap when the pilot whales swam back to the boat to find out what happened to us. It seemed they wanted to know where we went. They again were hovering right by the boat, some of them were spy hopping, waiting to see if we were going to jump back in.

My heart and mind were exploding.

So we scrapped the lunch idea and back into the water we went. We continued swimming with them. It was non-stop… the whales kept coming up to us. One of the juveniles took a big interest in our cameras and kept coming up close to get a good look at the dome ports. Maybe it was looking at it’s reflection, I don’t know?

This went on for the next two hours.

On our final jump of the day, we jumped in and the whales dove down to avoid us. We took that as a sign that they were done and it was time to call it a day.

The emotions on the boat were at an all time high. All of us were on fire… this was the stuff that dreams are made of. I have had some amazing moments in the water, but this day ranks up there with the very best of them.

Sandy, one of our friends on the trip said it best, “Days like today are why I would want to live forever.”

Wanted to say a special thanks to the beautiful people of Dominica, and a HUGE thank you to our friends who joined us out there, it was an amazing week. Luv you guys.

Until the next one and thank you guys for reading.