There is travel on the horizon, so close, I can almost touch it! T minus 6 days and I will be leaving Vancouver for 46 days!

I’ll be flying from Vancouver to Bangkok, Thailand. I’ll spend a month exploring Thailand and then will make my way to Bali, Indonesia for some more exploring and hopefully some diving! I don’t have much on my itinerary at this point and am somewhat planning on a “no-plan” plan and talking to people once I arrive there as to what the must-sees are in their personal experiences. The few things that are on my list however, are to do my advanced scuba diving course on Koh Tao, to experience the Songkran Festival for Thai New Year in Chiang Mai, to visit an elephant rescue sanctuary, to spend a few days on a liveaboard diving boat off Phuket, and of course to visit many temples. And of course, this goes without saying, I plan to photograph the entire experience!

After about a month in Thailand, I’ll head to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to catch a flight to Bali, Indonesia.  This is where I’ll spend my last 10 days of the trip diving, and seeing sights that I did not get to the last time around. As an added bonus, I’ll be spending a few days in Lovina in Northern Bali, at my aunt’s home, visiting with friends that I met on last year’s trip to the island.

So far, in preparation for the trip, I’ve booked my flight, purchased travel medical insurance, applied for and received my Thai tourist visa, and have ensured that my travel vaccinations are up to date. The main vaccinations my doctor said to concern myself with were: typhoid, tetanus, cholera, travelers diarrhea, and hepatitis A and B. Most of these were already up to date due to my travel to Bali last year, but the cholera/traveler’s diarrhea required a booster dose, so I did that, and the doctor also gave me some all purpose antibiotics (cipro) as a “just in case” solution to some potential problems that I may or may not encounter.

Having to deal with a house move before my departure has not helped my stress levels, so make things a bit simpler, and to save some cash on a month’s rent, I’ve chosen to put my life in storage until I return from the trip… It feels a bit strange to put it all back into a storage locker only six months after pulling it out of one, but somehow it feels like the right choice for the moment…

So there you have it… I’m booked and preparing for an adventure of a lifetime! I realize that many people never have the opportunity to make such a trip, so I plan to live it to the fullest and experience all there is to experience. The travel bug has bit me, and I have a feeling that this is only the beginning of my globe trotting adventures!

“Everything happens for a reason.” When “shit” happens this is something we tell ourselves and want to believe. Is it true? Who knows? But it is something we cling to because it is somehow comforting and helps get us through the rough patches of life…

The last two and a half years I have been through quite the roller coaster. I’ve experienced emotions I never knew existed and have felt them to my core. I think I’ve become guarded and jaded from the experience, but I have learned a lot through it as well, and that is always for the better…

I’ve started to reclaim my independence out of this experience, which I had lost somewhere along the way. This was the first time in a very long while that I did not have a partner and two children to consider in all that I did… It felt so strange at first, that I became somewhat of a hermit and didn’t do much of anything at all for a while. This was me until I recognized that this was very unhealthy and directing me toward depression. So to turn things around, I promised myself that if I was invited to do something (no matter what that something was) I would say yes and do it.

Out of this commitment, I have had many incredible experiences. I have slept in the ice hotel in Quebec, started scuba diving again, swam with sharks in the Blue Hole in Belize, went to the Yukon for a day (that’s right, a DAY trip), visited Northern British Columbia, spent a month on Bali, Indonesia, and experienced the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver in a way I never could have imagined! I  have done more traveling in the past 2 years than probably in my entire life and have had experiences that I couldn’t have dreamed up!

All I can say is that if things had not happened the way they did, I would never have seen or experienced any of these incredible things, nor would I be taking a 7 week trip to Southeast Asia at the end of this month!

So I reiterate, everything happens for a reason… My previous life feels like exactly that these days, a PREVIOUS life. Almost like a foggy dream. Not to say that I don’t treasure the memories that I collected in those years, because I do. I can honestly say that I had some of the best times of my life in those days. I was happier than I had ever been and had a partner and two beautiful children to share that with. I prefer to remember the good things rather than dwell on how things ended. The roller coaster took me through many things: sadness, pain, heart-break, depression, and all the “fun” things that go along with that. But on the other hand, when you roll it all up into a moment of life, it has made me a stronger person. So whatever the reason that things happened the way they did, it was meant to be. So here I am! Ready for life’s next adventure and whatever comes along with that…

Next stop: Thailand!

On my last day in Bali, Indonesia, I visited Sanur on the way to the Denpasar airport. This was one of the views I was faced with. Bali is truly beautiful island, I look forward to the day I will visit again.

This fisherman was mending the nets just off the docks in Cartagena, Spain.

After flying into Cancun and spending 5 days relaxing on the Mayan Riviera, it was off to Belize!

This involved a bus from Playa del Carmen to Chetumal in the south of Mexico, about a 3 hour bus ride. From there, another bus took us across the border to Belize. After a stop at the border to clear customs and the $20USD entrance tax, the bus took us to Corozal, where we would take a passenger ferry to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. Unfortunately, we had just missed the last boat of the day (there are two per day), so we found ourselves a hotel near the dock, and soon we were headed out and to find ourselves some tasty Belizean 1-Barrel rum cocktails and fresh lobster! Mmm!

The next morning, we caught the 7am ferry across to San Pedro. On the boat we met Jack, an American who owns a house on the island with several suites that he rents out to travelers and vacationers. Chez Caribe! A great place to call home during your stay in San Pedro! There are 3 studio suites and a 3 bedroom suite that makes up the entire top floor of the house. Having no accommodation plan, we checked it out and found our temporary home and a lifelong friend in Jack.

We spent our days in San Pedro, biking around, exploring, eating lobster and drinking rum at the Canucks Bar, swimming and relaxing. But most importantly, and most exciting, we did some DIVING! We took a day trip out to the Blue Hole! It was a 3-dive trip with dives at the Blue Hole, the Aquiarium and Halfmoon Wall, with a lunch break on Halfmoon Caye where we saw loads of red footed boobies. Absolutely amazing! Beautiful clear water, amazing sea life, and an overall amazing experience!

From Ambergris, we headed to Caye Caulker. We had heard so much about it, so were looking forward to checking it out. Jack volunteered to take us to the island on his boat, the L’il Bus. On the way we did some fishing, saw a beautiful rainbow and outran a storm!

Upon arrival at Caye Caulker, we had one of the locals help us find a place to stay and we ended up at a great place with little cabins right on the beach (the name escapes me). Loved it! The following day we took a photowalk of the island, ate lobster, met some great people, shopped at the local vendors, and drank a whole lot of rum! We planned to stay on the island a few days, but there is a saying, “I spent a week on Caye Caulker one day!” And its pretty accurate! It is a beautiful place, and I’m happy to have visited the island, but after a day and a half, we felt as though we had been there for about a week! So we enjoyed one last night of lobster and coconut rum cocktails and caught the passenger ferry back to San Pedro in the morning.

When we got off the boat, we walked right into a tropical rain storm! It was crazy! We were soaked instantly! So we found refuge in the Canucks Bar until the rain stopped and then made our way back to Chez Caribe.

Two more days in San Pedro, and it was time to head back up towards Mexico. Rather than catching the ferry back to the mainland, we decided to check out Belize from the air and took a flight back to Corozal. We were up against another rain storm that day and I actually walked across the tarmac to the plane in my bare feet because there was six inches of water on the ground! A memorable moment indeed! When the rain subsided a bit, we took off and once we cleared the rain clouds, we had an absolutely gorgeous view!

We made it back to Playa del Carmen that day, where we spent our last two nights before heading back to Cancun to catch our flight home. We spent the the time shopping, soaking up our last bit of sun, and enjoying our last few margaritas before heading back to winter in Vancouver!

For more photos from Belize, please visit the set on Flickr.

Another year gone by, and an epic year it was…

The year started off preparing for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Seeing 2010 on the calendar suddenly made it all a reality and the mad rush to get organized and a site up and filled with content began about a month before the Games actually opened. I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to work with an amazing group of talented folks who teamed up to create the VancouverAccess2010 website. With BCIMC accreditation, we focussed on the fan’s view of the Games and the team of us set out to attend as many events as we possibly could. We photographed and reported on them via this great resource site that we collectively created. Posts were also featured on Canada.com’s VanFans2010 blog.

The Paralympics was an even more amazing experience for me. With IPC photographer accreditaion, I was able to get up close and personal to shoot the amazing athletes and their inspiring performances in sports ranging from from sledge hockey, to sit skiing, to vision impaired downhill skiing, to curling, to incredibly emotional medal ceremonies! Unbelievable!

During the Games, I was invited to join a media day trip to Whitehorse, Yukon. Yep, that’s right, a DAY trip to Whitehorse! It was crazy! Caught a 7am flight, toured Whitehorse, met a 2006 silver medalist Olympian, visited  a nature reserve, tasted coffee from a local eco-friendly coffee roasting shop, soaked in some hot springs, drank a Sour Toe Cocktail, and enjoyed a banquet dinner celebrating the annual dog sledding racers. The Yukon is such a beautiful part of our country! I would love to head up there for some summer camping to see what’s under all that snow! I imagine it to be absolutely breathtaking! Another amazing adventurous experience!

When the Games were over, I was caught in the Olympic hangover, felt by much of the city, and many of my colleagues and partners in crime throughout this great world event. This got me thinking what I should do next and I came up with the idea that I wanted to do more traveling…

So, in March, I flew to Austin Texas to shoot a wedding for a friend who was unable to make it, due to a car accident. Never having met the bride or groom, nor having ever spoken to them directly, it was an interesting experience. The couple were amazingly welcoming and we got along instantly. I am happy to now call them friends. Their jewish wedding was held in Houston, so there was a bit of a road trip mixed into the trip (and of course some tasty Texan BBQ!). Unfortunately, there was not much time for site seeing with the short timeline, but I hope to make it back to Texas to see and photograph more of it!

Less than 2 weeks after returning from Austin, I was in flight yet again! This time for a month long adventure to Bali, Indonesia! Wow! It was an amazing month full of culture, food, site seeing, crazy drivers and photography! I spent the majority of my time on the northern side of the Island in Lovina. I spent about a week in Ubud as well. My trip to Ubud included a motorcycle adventure through the rice paddies, a walk through the Monkey Forest, a cooking class, and a Kecak and Fire Dance performance. It was an amazing month indeed, and I came home with gigabytes photos of the trip which can be viewed on Flickr.

Upon returning to Vancouver, mid-May, the city was gearing up for summer. I was excited to do as much camping and music festival-ing as I could! The first camping trip of the season was the first weekend in June, at Golden Ears Park. Always awesome camping there, one of my favourite provincial parks! No cell phone service, great hikes, campfires and of course tasty camping food (and drink)!

My first music festival of the summer was the Vancouver folk fest. I was fortunate enough to get 2 free Lifetimer, all-access passes to the festival from a friend who was unable to use them (thanks Lulu!) and me and a friend enjoyed a weekend of music, sun and family atmosphere at the beach!

Next on the list was a whale watching adventure with my family out of Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island with Ocean Ecoventures Whale Watching. Again, amazing! You will find a full summary of the adventure in this blog post.

Komasket Music Festival in Vernon, during the August long weekend, was the next road trip. Teaming up with @Scales and @Uncleweed for some social media coverage of the event was great fun! Got some great shots, met some great artists (including Fred Penner and the Wailers), and as with most summer music festivals, came home with a sun burn!

Later in August, I took a week long trip to my home town of Duncan, on Vancouver Island to spend my birthday with family and friends. Good times had by all with boating/tubing on Lake Cowichan, and floating in the Cowichan River, a day trip to Port Renfrew and Botanical Beach, and no Island visit in summer would be complete without a fresh local crab fest! The perfect birthday it was!

In the fall, things finally wound down a bit. The last trip of the year was one out to Ucluelet and Tofino, on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. I had not been out this way since I was about 12 years old, so I was very excited to go enjoy and photograph the beaches, especially with storm season just setting in! I was not disappinted! We lucked out with beautiful sunny weather the first day, including a gorgeous sunset on Long Beach. And the next day we enjoyed a storm and some great big crashing waves on the rocks in Ucluelet. And of course no trip to Tofino would be complete without a stop at Cathedral Grove and Coombs to see the goats on the roof on the way back!

In the fall things became quite busy. I moved out of the downtown core at the end of September, to East Van. Although I have always had a dog on a part time basis, in November Roxie came to stay with me full time as @Scales departed for Thailand. I love having her and love that she gets me out rain or shine (or snow!) for two hour-long walks a day! Having started a fulltime position at 80 Elements Entertainment in October, I have fallen back into a full time job routine. Also, I have been shooting weekend events for Estee Lauder. I started doing Bikrams Yoga three times a week in November, which I have become ridiculously addicted to. So the end of the year has found me to be quite busy.

I was happy to spend Christmas on the Island with family and friends and will be spending New Years Even there as well to ring in another (hopefully) adventurous year full of travel and surprises!

My new years resolutions are these: Travel more. Photograph more. Build my photography kit. Learn more about social media. Do more Bikrams! More is MORE!

Cheers to 2010 and all of you that I have met and befriended in the past 365 days! You have made an impact, and (whether good or bad) you have helped shape who I am and who I am to become. I thank you and look forward to another amazing year in 2011!

Cheers and Happy New Year!!!

The Air (water) Panas (hot) hot springs are located in Banjar, on the north side of the island of Bali in Indonesia. The “holy” hot springs are set in the midst of the jungle in a beautifully landscaped tropical garden, close to Lovina Beach, and it consist of three public and one private pool.

For more images of Air Panas, please visit the Set on Flickr!

Kelp bed outside of Cowichn Bay, on Vancouver Island.

For more photos from this adventure, visit the Whale Watching Set on Flickr!

For my dad’s birthday this year, rather than have a big party, my dad wanted to spend some quality time with the family. With this request in mind, my mom drove down the beautiful Cowichan Bay, on Vancouver Island and booked a whale watching tour with Ocean Ecoventures.

We arrived at the storefront location, which doubles as an art gallery, and were provided with full-body, wind proof, Helly Hansen flotation suits for the day’s adventure. It was the first really hot day of the summer so the need for the suits didn’t seem to make sense, but once we were out and speeding across the water I was grateful to have it.

Once suited up, we made our way down to the zodiac was moored and were given a quick but detailed safety lesson for the trip by Simon Pidcock, owner/operator of Ocean Ecoventures. Before taking off, he took this group shot!

We barely left the harbour when we caught our first glimpse of ocean wildlife. A harbour seal swam by about twenty feet from the boat!

After about a 45 minute boat ride (with gorgeous B.C. views), we arrived to an area where the orcas tend to hang out and play around. Simon told us of all kinds of interesting facts, behaviours and statistics about the whales. He was very knowledgeable and much of the information was astounding!

Whales were not the only wildlife we saw on the trip. After watching and following the orcas for a couple of hours, we headed back to Cowichan Bay. He took us into a kelp bed, where he showed us that kelp is amazingly strong, and that it has an unbelievable growth rate, as well as many benefits to the ocean and its’ creatures. We even took a kelp leaf out of the water and ate it. Yep, it’s edible!

Other creatures we came across were several bald eagles as well as a bald eagle nest, a couple of ospreys and their nest of young, and of course a lot of seals hanging out on the logs.

All in all we had an AMAZING experience! Unreal photographic opportunities! And we were lucky with phenomenal weather!

If you are planning a trip to Vancouver Island and are looking for a fun adventure in the Cowichan Valley, an Ocean Ecoventures Whale Watching tour with Simon Pidcock should definitely be on your itinerary!

A few tips for your trip:

• Bring your best camera and best zoom/telephoto lens for the trip. I was afraid my gear would get wet, so I left it behind, but not a drop of water made it inside the boat! (*kicking myself!*)
• Wear SUNSCREEN! Even on a cloudy day you are susceptible to sunburn.
• Bring sunglasses and a hat to wear while floating around watching the whales.
• Wear closed toed shoes.
• Bring a bottle of water.
• Ask lots of questions, Simon knows his stuff!

For more information about Ocean Ecoventures, visit their website, and follow them on Twitter and Facebook. And be sure to check out some of Simon’s beautiful whale photography on Flickr.

Ocean Ecoventures Whale Watching is located at:
1721 Cowichan Bay Road, Cowichan Bay
Vancouver Island, British Columbia
Local – 250 748 3800
Toll Free – 1 866 748 5333

Have you taken a whale watching tour? Please share your experience in the comments.

Right from my check in experience at the Vancouver airport (YVR), I was very impressed by China Airlines and their efforts to accommodate my seat request for my 13 hours flight from YVR to Taipei (TPE) Taiwan. My seat was decent to begin with, 9A by the window fairly close to the front of the Airbus 330-300, but the clerk at the desk said he could probably do better for me and find a similar seat with an empty one beside me as the flight was only at 70% capacity. He would let me know at the gate if he was able to make the change. And SUCCESS! I ended up in 12K, a window seat on the opposite side, with the whole row to myself! YES!

The flight was smooth for the most part, a few bumps and fasten seat belt warnings along the way, but nothing major. The food was… well… it was airline food… But surprisingly, I was able to sleep away about 7 hours of the flight… Almost like a time machine deleting these hours from the flight time! 🙂

The landing at Taipei was smooth. There was an attendant waiting there to help passengers find their next gate. So after a short train ride and a bit of a walk, I found Gate 1A, complete with drunk-airport-crazy-lady and all!

When I first arrived at the gate, drunk-airport-crazy-lady was passed out at the end of the people mover (you know, those escalators that don’t actually escalate? they are just flat people movers)… Then I decided to find myself a snack and some tea, and when I passed her for the second time, she was awake and ranting at everyone who passed her. Then she stumbled her way to my gate, and caused a bit of a ridiculous scene. Yelling, screaming and waving her arms like a crazy person. (ah-hem, straight jacket please!) The airport crew then moved her to a separate area in hopes, I think, to calm her down… But lemme tell ya, I sure hoped she wouldn’t end up on my 5-hour flight from Taipei to Denpasar!

Honestly, I’d be surprised if they let her on a plane at all…. but no security had shown up yet, so who knew…? If this was Vancouver, they would have tackled, pepper sprayed, tazed and handcuffed her by now! (ok, ok, bad joke… but still… the point is that this would never be acceptable airport behaviour at YVR…)

Anyway, now I have some dude sitting behind me in the waiting area and a China Airlines worker, who claimed to be the purser for our flight, hijacked his guitar and played Eric Clapton tunes flawlessly! Loved it!

Hehe, if the rest of my trip is this interesting, I think the next month will be an amazing one!

I later ended up talking to said “dude” with guitar (who ended up being from Vancouver Island) and he was telling me how he got upgraded to business class on his flight from Miami to Taipei and how great that was. I was pretty happy having an empty seat beside me, but I had to agree that a 13 hour flight in business class would have kicked ass!

So, that’s it for the first leg of my 30-hour travel adventure. Stay tuned for Part II in my next post about the flight from Taipei to Denpasar…