Checking out the closest beach and cliffs south of the main town in San Cristobal seeing Blue Footed Boobies, Galapagos Sea Lions, Marine Iguanas and variety of birds.

I've been looking at flying to New Zealand recently and realized you can see several other places for a not too much more expensive flight itinerary. Spanning the month of April 2024, it's $952 to go from LAX (Los Angeles, CA) to HNL (Honolulu, HI) to MEL (Melbourne, Australia) to AKL (Auckland, New Zealand) to PPT (Papeete, French Polynesia) then back to LAX.

Second part of the San Cristobal 360 Tour, from Rosa Blanca we went to Bahia Sardina for some more snorkeling, afterward heading to Punta Pitt to see some nesting birds and red footed boobies. Cerro Brujo for cave framed photo-op of our final stop, Kick Rock. This part was a little freaky as it was 130 feet deep and you immediately see shark, though the deepness was more unnerving to me as my flippers didn't feel particularly snug and holding a camera had me feeling a little less nimble though it got better as you go on. Our guide told us to stay 30feet from the rock ledge here as rocks regularly fall from the cliff faces, it seemed ok to approach later. Another group was swimming through the channel as we were finishing swimming around.

After leaving Santa Cruz we took a ferry boat to San Cristobal Island. This is just video of the main town, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. The ferry ride over had rough seas and I almost puked, one of the engines gave out and the boat had to turn around and we took another boat, at which point the ocean had settled down significantly. Similar to Puerto Ayora, there is a lot of wildlife right on the beach front, but it has way more sea lions than you would see in Puerto Ayora. The are beaches right in town but they are mostly fenced off for the Sea Lions. The closest actual public beach is a 40 minute walk away past the airport, which is right next to town and an easy walk, and will appear in another video.

The 360 Tour on San Cristobal is a boat day trip that goes around the whole island, making stops along the way. Starting in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the first stop is Rosa Blanca, a scenic beach and mangrove lagoon. The snorkeling was good seeing lots of turtles but the visibility was not ideal at points.

This was a daytrip from Santa Cruz Island. A mini-bus/van takes you from Puerto Ayora to the Baltra ferry crossing where you embark on a boat to Bartalome. You pass Isla Daphne Mayor on the way. Once on Bartalome Island you hike up to the peak for the famous viewpoint and small lighthouse. The next stop is snorkeling and or visiting a beach on Santiago Island, the portion adjacent to Bartalome. I really enjoyed the snorkeling here, it was actually probably my favorite spot on the whole trip, but my phone display died the day before so I didn't have any underwater footage. Luckily others did, the portion with the penguin is from my friend Chris. After the beach and snorkeling they give you a hearty meal and the boat takes the same route back to Santa Cruz .

Checking out the Giant Tortoises at Rancho Primicias. It was awesome getting up close with these massive reptiles!

Flying from Quito to Baltra Airport, taking the short ferry to Santa Cruz Island and the bus down to Puerto Ayora. Exploring the town and seeing Sea Lions, Crabs and small Marine Iguanas.

Visiting the Charles Darwin Research Center in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos Islands.

Visiting the highlands of Santa Cruz Island. The twins are adjacent volcano craters and there is a lava tunnel near a turtle ranch. The tunnel was more more extensive than I was expecting and really enjoyed it, highly recommend. The craters had a nature trail which is a great way to see the near rainforest condition and the indigenous daisy trees, its a real contrast from the desert Baltra island where you first fly in. There were Tortoises mating right outside of the cave exit, it sounded like a cow before we saw it, huge!

Visiting Playa Tortuga Bay on Santa Cruz in the Galapagos Islands. There is a nature walk path with lots of tree cactus, lava lizards and birds until you arrive at a white sand beach and mangrove lagoon with birds, marine iguanas and fish.

Continuation of Playa Tortuga Bay in Santa Cruz, Galapagos, Ecuador. The mangrove lagoon has a lot of young black tip reef sharks and small hammerheads but I didn't get video of the hammerheads. Turtles, Blue Footed Boobies, Spotted Eel and a variety of fish as well as a cluster of marine iguanas.

May 1, 2020. Far view of the red tide lighting the wave breaks in Pacific Beach, San Diego.

Easy hike to a set of small waterfalls in Penasquitos creek. Upstream/West from Torrey Pines in San Diego. Video shot in mid March 2020 on GoPro Hero Black and Panasonic GH4.

Short trip to Goa in south central coastal India. This former Portuguese colony is known for it's beaches, spice plantations and Portuguese influence on the local architecture, language and religion. I spent 4 days at Jungle Hostel in Anjuna, starts at Goa Airport, walked a considerable distance to see the local surrounding before getting a ride up to Calungute Beach, walking up to Anjuna, checking out the fort and spending the majority of my time around there. Walked down as far south to Aguada Fort before returning to the airport.

Final stretch of my first trip to India in 2016.

-Sanjay Ghandi National Park, Kanheri Caves, Tiger and Monkeys
-Lake Powai Shive Festival
-Holi Festival at Juhu Beach
-Riding the metro to south Mumbai (fort, Gateway of India, -Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus, Rajabai Clock Tower)
-Renaissance Mumbai Hotel & Convention Centre view
-last day at work in Mindspace complex and fellow coworkers
- 6 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany
- flying over glaciers an BC mountains on the way back to Vancouver, Canada.

Day of the Dead "Dio De Los Muertos" celebration in Old Town historic park in San Diego, CA. Filmed on Novemeber 2nd, 2019.

Wolf-dog meetup in San Diego's Balboa Park on November 2, 2019. About 20 wolf dog hybrids were in the pond area next to the Botanical Building. This is an annual event.

Houston was the first stop on the Texas leg of my trip. I never really could figure what I wanted out of the city so ended up visiting my cousin instead, though the rodeo or space center might have been interesting with more time.

On the way to Austin, I stopped at Buc-cees convience store super center. It had tons of varieties of beef jerky, fountain drinks and slushies, and every other road food and item you could possibly desire. It really surprised me and was a fun, unexpected stop.

Austin is the state capital of Texas. The capital building has color scheme of red granite that blends well with the states semi arid western environment. Full of history and relics from the states inception, you can also view the inner workings of the state legislature. The capital grounds are full of statues in a similar vein.

6th street is the best place to get a sense of Austins vibe/culture. Often described as a liberal mecca in a sea of red or a colony of California, it seems similar to several other west coast cities. The music festival SXSW (South by Southwest) was going on at the time so traffic and the local representation may have been somewhat skewed by people from out of town.

My favorite part of the city was the Colorado River which runs through downtown and is flanked by parks and woodland for almost it's entire length. It's a calm, low flower river and easy to navigate with any kind of watercraft, I took it as a chance to use my kayak. The best stretch is in Zilker Park at Barton Creek/Springs. This spring makes the waters hue a turquoise blue which contrasts to the greener water in the Colorado.

The Bat Bridge on Congress Avenue is the best place to end your evening. Around sundown, from March to November (peek season is July/August) a colony of 1.5 million bats emerge from below from under bridge and put on a show for the crowds of onlookers.

Reenactment of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo landing Ballast Point at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego on September 28. This event celebrates and reenacts the first contact European explorers had with San Diego and by extension the state of California in 1542. The landing event starts at 1pm with the San Salvador, a replica of Juan Cabrillo's ship much like the Mayflower in New England, sails through San Diego bay and launches a smaller boat which paddles up to the shores of Ballast Point. There are military, culutural dancers, musicians, food, speakers representing the Spanish, Portuguese, Mexican, Native and America history of the area/event.

Scenes from the Viking Festival in Vista, CA on September 22, Saturday afternoon. Entry was $15. There were viking food, spirits/beer and trinkets sold at various tents, music, Viking era reenactors with camp and weapons displays, a fish toss, iron working and weapon contests with bows, spears and axes. Missed several other events.

Various scenes of protestors and supporters of Donald Trumps visit to the US Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego, next to Hornton Plaza. Protestors and the Trump balloon were set up on the northeast corner of the plaza on 4th and Broadway while the supporters were one block to the rest, with several smaller groups gathering at the other surrounding corners of the barricaded area. There were some interesting characters.... Giant MAGA hat guy, Trump in Jail (which looked like Hillary in jail without the mask), "The Wall" Suit Guy, Anit Vaxxers, lots of signs, KUSI, FOX 5, NBC 7, CBS 8. There was some arguing between Trump supports and protestors on opposite sides of the street where he was exiting the hotel and heading down to the Otay Mesa border wall.

Watching the speed boat races in Mission Bay around Sea World and Crown Point bridges.

This is an itinerary for fall 2019 that will take you around the world for $571 USD. It goes through San Francisco (USA), Hong Kong to Macau (China), Bangkok to Krabi (Thailand) , Stockholm (Sweden), a layover in London(UK) and back to San Francisco. This is very similar to last years video on the same subject with the biggest change being that Icelandic discount airline WOW is no longer operational.

Itinerary
San Francisco to Hong Kong $164 (kayak search)

Hong Kong to Macau (via ferry, 30$ price not included)

Macau to Bangkok on Air Asia for $65 (air asia website)

Bangkok to Krabi via ground transport, price not included (this should be part of a larger itinerary around the country)

Krabi to Stockholm via Norwegian Air for $130 (Norwegian air website)

Stockholm to San Francisco via Norwegian Air (Again) for $212

Two Rhodesian Ridgebacks wrestling, running and swimming on Fiesta Island in San Diego. Dogs are aged 1 and 8 years old(black ears).