Upcoming (more) northern visit

I think I have a thing for apex predators.

Living and working in northern British Columbia in prime black and grizzly bear habitat, I regularly see these beauties cruising the powerlines, cutblocks, roadsides looking for a feed.  In all the sightings and interactions on foot, none have given me any grief or cause to worry.

Two previous stints took me to volunteer at the Sharklab on beautiful Bimini in the Bahamas with a variety of shark species.

On Sunday, I will be arriving in Churchill, Manitoba to volunteer for six weeks at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre.  Situated on the aurora oval and adjacent to Wapusk National Park which protects the inland denning area of the polar bear, I'm looking forward to the opportunities to view northern lights and migrating polar bears.

As at the Sharklab, it's the spectacle of these apex predators that lures in most visitors and volunteers. While I fall into that category, I have to remind myself that these places are SO much more than the critters they're known for.

Bimini has endemic snakes, migrating birds, massive turtles and tiny seahorses while Churchill is also a birding haven, botanist's wet dream as three biomes converge, an active archaeological dig and there's even seasonal beluga whales!  And then there's the people I met and have yet to meet.

Yeah, I had a great time longlining, observing and acoustically tracking juvenile lemon sharks, swimming with reef sharks and pen building at the Sharklab, but it is the relationships I developed and continue to nurture that were the greatest prize from my time spent in Bimini.  So again, I'm looking forward to a new place and new faces to share this great next adventure.   

A smattering of Africa photos

Dan shows off the amazing Victoria Falls

                                       

Vic Falls actually

Sunset over the Zambezi

Kitty!

His female counterparts in Tembe

Ele group at Tembe watering hole

Rhino and ocean, yes please!

Kissing/fighting hippos outside St. Lucia

Another spectacular sunset in Namibia

Spooky Deadvlei

           

 How did I end up with two travel companions in capes?

View from Table Mountain

View of Cape Town from Cable Car carpark

 Carcharodon carcharias from the surface 

Underwater - water temp, btw, 13 degrees...

Vino tasting outside Cape Town

Stellar venue for an evening concert with Sipho 'Hotstix' Mabuse

Heading back to Cape Town via Chapman's Peak

Robyn was delighted when my trousers split and they were donated to the bin

On sequels

I had mixed emotions of returning to SE Asia and later Bimini’s Sharklab this past winter.  Eight months since I left from Singapore via Manila and I was back in Singapore on my way to Bali.  Like Manila, you aim to leave Bali as soon as possible.  If the bedbugs in Sanur don’t get you, the lying-to-you-face-and-smiling-about-it locals will.  Spectacular diving made up for the Philippines and Indonesia’s lackluster food – compared to Vietnam and Malaysia’s street eats – while men throughout the region with the same leery lineage had me second guessing.

Returning to two areas I’d previously enjoyed, I was reminded of Heraclitus of Ephesus that you can never step into the same river.  Amid my transient lifestyle with supporting tattered, water stained passport and scattering of friends, family and lovers around the globe I was surprised that I’d purposefully chosen to visit the same place twice.  

Feeling SE Asia’s pull through the previous summer coupled with the dissatisfaction I’d neglected significant pieces and places and feeling a homesickness for a place that wasn’t my home, I observed a rare place fidelity.  The diving kept me entertained as I climbed into Robyn’s wetsuit and followed her fin kicks all over Indonesia, the food in Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam made my tummy smile but I didn’t clichély “return for the people.”  

Quite the opposite.  There were plenty of people who legitimately could have held me in Canada.  A budding relationship with an are-you-real? man; a returning-from-where-I-wanted-to-go cousin; a previously incarcerated brother desperate to fall into a support net; girlfriends getting engaged, having second children, looking to sell their first home; a mother who, like me, cries at each parting.  

Lonely Planet co-founder Tony Wheeler’s “all you've got to do is decide to go and the hardest part is over” bounce through my head as I contemplate where I don’t know I’m going against what, where and who I’ve (temporarily) left behind.  

Attempts to adequately stay in touch are in place but exchanged emails and unreliable postcards home cannot rival the former ease of daily life.  Even if I chose to dive into the time consuming and frustrating Skype, all would continue to be a tease of the former intimacy enjoyed amongst friends and family.
 

Friend and fellow wanderer, Steph, celebrates the advancements in communication currency.  I, too, am pleased that I can chat online and mobile phones (that are financing a civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo) are more widespread than passable roads but I grieve the loss of travelers congregating in the common room with nothing to do until someone produces a pack of cards or, more likely, a box of wine.  

The wanderlust incest is still alive and evident as I bumped into a lifeguard from Bonnie Doon pool on Koh Pha Ngan the next bungalow over.  “Small world!” we exclaimed.  Boarding plane four of five to the other side of the world months later I’m reminded that the world, is in fact, still a very large place.  

Fifty-four hours from Bali to Calgary – the majority of those legs likely plagued by at least one colicky baby in the cabin.  WestJet’s timely April Fool’s joke of announcing child-free cabins was an outward expression of not only my mile-high and, if online forums are to be believed, many other travelers’ grievances.  My compliments to a girlfriend who drugs her children for air travel.  

While 15 hours of plane travel amounts to a considerable distance, the same cannot be said of non-air travel.  In the same hours required to cross the Pacific, Robyn and I traveled from Sabang, Mindoro to Sugar Beach on Negros and were still in the same country!  We took multiple boats, an airplane, a jeepney, a tricycle and numerous there’s-space-in-the-aisle buses.  

While I’ll likely be back in SE Asia – possibly as soon as this winter – I can’t prematurely predict the same for the Sharklab.  While the cast had changed from my previous stint in 2010, the spectacle had remained the same.  Collectively lured to Bimini by the possibility of a spectacle, the tears on the porch as I bid the stayers-ons farewell, were for the cast that had enriched my life.  I had arrived with the expectation of extraordinary experiences, and more than fulfilled, hummed Colin James’s “Just Came Back to say Goodbye” as I was driven to the airport to begin taking the long way home – where ever that is...

Reel big cudda

 Sarah and Aaron had both landed multiple baracuddas before I brought a monster to the boat.  More than a meter long and barely containted in the bait box, mild chaos followed as former Lab Manager Sean failed to gaff, but sucessfully unhooked it in the trough in front of the engine. 

Sarah with her first.  Ever

Sean dehooking

What catching nothing for more than two hours looks like



My turn

Sean: Can someone drive this thing?

Me: Uh, yeah, no porblem

Sean (guestering away from shore): Just point it that way

Off that dock is money

We had an official measure and weigh off.  Mine was 106 cm and 13 pounds.  Sarah's was 102 cm and 13 pounds.  Hopefully these cuddas will net us future hammerheads. 

Octoposses, painting and sunsets

Ocoposses are deployed nearly daily.  The exterior of the house is new colours.  Tower observations have taken on a new element of challenging.  SUR collection is great fun under water spouts.  Shark fishing continues with mixed results. 

 Octopus 1

 Day off on North

 Off Back Beach

 On the way to Shell Beach for sunset

 Hey, yacht with a 3 million dollar helipcopter, you're in the way!

 Jean, TJ and Mai-Britt on one of the towers

 Ravi with hairy SURs

Water spout over Bimini Bay

Nurse shark wrangling, suprise turtle, rainday everything

 The weather continues to be shite with today's winds nearly fitting into category 1 hurricane parameters.  Anticipating incoming volunteers on the 15th, the cool northern winds blew us inside and we cleaned, bleached and aired out the lab, house for their arrival. 

We've been catching nurse sharks for Laruan's project, tracking in the North Sound, sitting on towers observing for Jean's project and gillnetting.  The day-to-day pace has relaxed as weather appropriate tasks are prepared.  

 

Lab Manager Jim with one of eight nurse sharks we "wrangled" 

 Turtle found under a ledge

Boat shot

 The boys with our catch 

 "This is a record day for me," Jim exclaimed

 Depth stick = tin can telephone

 Raining again

Jean's exploration pen
 

Setting, or hauling a gillnet int the Duck Pond

Across the road from the lab

 

Watch out!

Shell Beach at sunset