GalenandVane

Whale Watching (Princess Monterey Whale Watch) Getting the opportunity to witness certain events of nature in the wild is amazing. In July 2010, it was all over the news that whales are staying a little bit longer @ Monterey Bay due to the unusually large amount of krill available in the bay. Often whale watching means seeing a tail from far away, but that was not the case this year. The whales got closer to the boat and in some cases even went under the boat or stayed closer to the boat for a while. So, we decided to try our luck and did whale watching twice in a month and got the opportunity to see Humpback Whales and Blue Whales up close like never before. One spectacular event was the tail slapping by a ... read more

For a group of islands in the South Pacific, Tonga is not as popular as Hawaii, nor as spectacular as Tahiti or Fiji. But if you want to experience authentic Polynesian culture, there is nothing like Tonga. It's a unique place that is not easy to get to or even find on a map. In 2004, I went to Tonga to swim with humpback whales. (I already posted about whale swimming, so I'll just focus on describing Tonga.) Tonga is a collection of more than 175 islands, most of them small. To get to Tonga from the U.S., I flew from San Francisco -->Hawaii-->Samoa-->to the main island on Tonga. Still, it took another flight and a boat ride to get to tiny Mounu island, where I stayed. Less than 5 people live on that island. Tonga ... read more

I've always been fascinated about how humans evolved. After seeing the movie "Clan of the Cave Bear", I took some trips to France (2005) and Spain (2006 & 2010) to see some world famous prehistoric cave paintings. Modern Humans (or Cro-Magnons) seemed to have completely displaced the Neanderthals at least 25,000-30,000 years ago. While I've been interested in Neanderthals and viewed some of their fossils and weapons, only Cro-Magnons painted caves. When you view the cave paintings, you often have to travel into wet, dark caves. Many of the paintings are hard to see (because of decay over time) and you need the tour guide to point out the features of the paintings. The vast majority of the paintings are of animals - Bulls, mammoths, reindeer, horses, goats, and more. Many of the paintings I saw ... read more

Although I have swam with many kinds of marine animals such as humpback whales, spinner dolphins, and harbor seals, I knew there would be nothing like being in the water with a great white shark. Great whites might look scary, but they aren't people-eating machines. In fact, more people are killed by falling coconuts than by shark attacks. The sharks might be curious and possibly nibble at the cage, but they typically won't have an appetite for you unless you surf and look like a seal. The three most popular locations to cage dive with great whites are South Africa, Guadalupe Island, and Neptune Island, Australia. I picked Guadalupe Island because it was closer to our California home and because the visibility is really good. I was with a group of 11 other cage divers. We ... read more