Since I was a kid I’ve been fascinated by sharks and whales and anything large that swam the seas, and there’s none larger in the shark family than the Whale Shark. There are a couple places in the world you can reliably swim with congregations of these large, peaceful, sharks; the closest to me is Isla Mujeres off the coast …
Back in the Khutzeymateen
Three days is not enough for these adventures, even less so when Air Canada loses your luggage en route to Prince Rupert and you’re socked in by fog the first morning, but when we finally flew into the Khutzeymateen Inlet in British Columbia’s wild west coast, and began sitting with the grizzlies from our inflatable zodiac, it’s like time just …
Northern Kenya, Pt. 1
The black road leading towards the dust-shrouded sun is warming, Flanked by a thousand citizens walking to work, to school, to anywhere but here. Nairobi wakes to birds and dogs and the honking horns of every car and bus That soon will choke these roads. And we, today, head-fogged and time-lost from half a world away, Are heading north, half-drunk …
Hokkaido Boat Abstracts
Halfway through this last trip to Hokkaido my brain needed a break from all the white, elegant, graphic stuff. Beautiful, to be sure, but I needed something tangental, something different. In part, I think, I wanted something manmade, probably longed for some colour as well. What I found in the old boat yards, the boats all up on blocks, some …
Back from Hokkaido
I got in from Japan yesterday and dove headlong into the blur of jetlag. By now I’m pretty good at the auto-pilot chores and the mindless digging out from the pile of things accumulated in my absence. It’s not just jetlag that makes it hard, but the more whole-body confusion that results from longing to be back where I just …
Postcards from Hokkaido
When I came to Hokkaido for the first time for a wildlife tour in 2013, I fell in love with the place. It’s vast, wild, elegant, and her people live close to the land. I left with a longing to return, so when Martin Bailey asked me to come back and do this trip again, but with a landscape emphasis, …
Venice to Hokkaido via Vancouver
Saying goodbye is hard. When the person from whom you part ways is a city like Venice, it’s even harder. This trip more than any other has been amazing. With my surgery in February, and an uncertain recovery time, I didn’t think I’d get to Italy this year, so to be able to spend Christmas here, in a stunning little …
Postcards from Venice
Venice is, at any time of year, magical. But I’ve never enjoyed it this much, never found so much mood and beauty. The tourists are a little thinner now that it’s cold out, but the light is gorgeous – this morning the sun just let the fog do its thing and didn’t try to get in the way. We’ve got …
Waiting, in Newfoundland.
I get nervous when things come too easily, which, as it turns out, is not remotely the case on this trip. Sadly, I also get nervous when things are tough and there are no guarantees that my work is going anywhere. That’s the tension I’ve been living in on this trip across Canada, now into its 6th week. I’ve been …
Diving in Zanzibar
After two weeks in Zanzibar at the end of what’ll be almost 6 weeks in East Africa, we’re packing up to head home. From beginning to end it’s been the trip of dreams. My time in Lalibela, Ethiopia, was like traveling back in time. Safari with Cynthia and my mother was a trip of a lifetime and it’ll take me …