Happy 2015 everyone! I kicked off the new year by making a quick run down to the Dry Tortugas National Park. About 70 miles west of Key West lie a small group of seven islands that make up the park, and thanks to Jim Nimz, the Park Dive Officer, and the rest of the folks […]

Thanks to the amazing sponsorship by Lindblad Expeditions, I spent three weeks aboard the National Geographic Orion on a fascinating island-hopping trip from Fiji to French Polynesia. On the trip we visited 13 islands and six countries; Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, the Cook Islands (New Zealand), and French Polynesia. This trip was one of the most interesting, […]

Bula! Continuing my cruise along the South Pacific, my next stop was Pacific Harbour – a small town on Viti Levu, Fiji’s main island. Pacific Harbour is home to Beqa Adventure Divers (BAD), a local shark conservation group masquerading as a dive shop. BAD has managed to set up a shark ecotourism operation that prides […]

Talofa! 14°15’16″S, 170°41’41″W marks the location of the United State’s southernmost National Park (in fact, the only US National Park in the Southern Hemisphere), the National Park of American Samoa. Tutuila, the main island of American Samoa, is a beautiful island with striking steep green mountains and a scattering of cliffs and beaches along its shoreline. […]

After leaving the Pacific Northwest I traveled east to spend a couple of weeks in Massachusetts with the Malkoski family enjoying the beautiful colors of fall and getting a proper taste of the area that included lobster, Dunkin’ Donuts, and a visit to Plymouth Rock (not all at the same time, of course). My first stop […]