Cameos - Stories

Scroll down through these word images to trip around the world, visiting memories, escapes and escapades which could not be captured on film.

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Stories 1

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Underwater videos

World Map

Puerto Rico

listening to the Chirp of the Coqui frog after a heavy rainfall in the El Junque rain forest ...

diving into the shallow lagoon of La Parguera, and watching the bioluminescence shimmer in the spray of the boat motor and my delighted splashes, by moonlight.

The first time I discovered the phenomenon of bioluminescence I was 17, I had jumped off the back of the sail boat into a protected bay off the Coast of Marmaris, Turkey, and I couldn't believe such a marvel could exist. I saw it again, in the Galapagos Islands, night diving with the sea lions and nurse sharks.

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Kiawah Island, South Carolina, watching the newborn green baby sea turtles emerge from their nests and head toward the waterline, chased and apprehended by big lizards and hunting seabirds

Fiji - Suva to Taveuni Island

Swimming freestyle alone in the Channel between the Nigel Edward family resort and Laucala Island, owned by Malcom Forbes, and being shadowed by a giant manta ray, so large I didn't know they existed, and being frightened to become this unknown (at the time) gentle plankton eating sea creature's meal.

Diving vertical walls of beautiful purple and yellow gorgonians and sea fans.

Sangalakki beach in Borneo

Sangalakki Island, Borneo - meeting my first school of giant manta rays

Palau - Koror and Rock Islands, Jellyfish Lake

Flying in by tiny seaplane. Dense reefs filled with color and marine life.

Spending 2 hours - using up the last ounces of oxygen in my dive tank suspended underwater with the jellies.

Kingdom of Tonga

Tongatapu lagoon, Vavau lobster tacos, and meeting Tui Malila, the iconic radiated Madagascar sea turtle given to the Royal family by Captain James Cook in Nuku'alofa.

Tu'i Malila - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu%27i_Malila)

Guilin China

Navigating the misty, extraordinary Li River, seeing the karst formations.

Almost losing an eye to a nighttime fishing cormorant.

Seeing Buddhist monks use the high speed internet in Yangshuo during a torrential downpour when the rest of the town's power supply had gone out.

Longsheng Terraces,

Losing our path and traversing the terraces by lantern, among some of the most extensive agricultural terraces on earth.

France: Paris.

Finding favorite styles and media, of art - ceramics and oils and pastels, in the museums. Musee D'Orsay, Champs Elysees. Learning about L'artisan Parfumeur, the perfumist to French Royalty, near the Rodin Museum and bringing home my first 400 year old line of perfumes. Walking through the Louvre til my feet ached.

Dancing in the French discos til 5 am

Tokyo - Rappongi

Tokyo discos all night long til the sun came up.

Having my mother and sister arrive into Tokyo, hopping onto a 10 pm bus, summitting Mt. Fuji on my birthday, cold and wet, not knowing enough about alpinism that we needed to have protection for the chill associated with altitude, or the rain. Seeing octogenarians make the climb.

And, seeing the pilgrimage climbs at Ishizuchi mountain.

Mt. Rainier, Washington State.

Making it past the Cleaver and sumitting Mount Rainier, picking through the sharp, jagged suncups, then dancing - hopping up and down excitedly at the shoulder hut on the way down, having never done anything as physically demanding as that in my life, and discovering that I could will myself to complete the climb and the trek down.

Sleeping 20 hours, and waking up feeling parts that I didn't know I could sense, from fatigue.

Lake Ohrid, Macedonia - crossing Central Europe's oldest and deepest lake

Chilean Lake District

Seeing the unusual tourmaline color due to mineral content of the runoff

Berlin, near the Helmut Newton photography museum.

Going to a goth laser light and punk rock music show in Berlin, with my 70+ year old mother, after seeing the Helmut Newton collection.

Discovering the Epic of Gilgamesh had a flood myth and seeing the Gates of Ishtar in the Berlin Museum

Carcassonne, France

Foundation dating to about 3500BC

The smell of the lavender fields, and discovering the campaign during the Albigensian Crusaders, to exterminate the Cathars, a rival, heterodox religious sect with varying interpretations of the Christian narrative.

Dordogne Forest, France (Monkey’s Forest)

Sampling a myriad of cheeses, mushrooms and mustards - artisanal gourmet delights, in the Forest manor houses and cave cellars of the French forests.

Chenonceau Castle, France Galloping a beautiful tall dapple grey horse through the bridle paths around the Castle, and mounting up in the Castle stables

Borneo

- the Niah bat cave in Gunung Mulu national park, seeing millions and millions of bats fly out at dusk to capture insects, and seeing the swiftlets echolocate. Watching humans climb up tremulous bamboo ladders to collect the nests for birds nest soup in utter blackness, with the ammonia, beetles and guano from millions of bats seething below their feet

Niah bat cave

Torrential downpour - over 12" of rain in a single afternoon, and plucking leeches frequently from my blood streaked legs back and arms,

Gunung Mulu National Park

returning from ascent at the Pinnacles. I do have a photo from this trek, which I took alone with two guides, and was mostly terrified I would never return from this adventure.

New Zealand

South Island Pink Dolphins Milford Sound - at the mouth of the freshwater fjord, seeing the spinner dolphins breach and race in front of the bow of our motorboat, watching mom tip her head back and getting drenched under a passing waterfall as the boat navigates into the spray

Te Anau - glow worm cave.

Unable to believe the complex and surprising creation of glow worms, another of the infinite wonders of nature.

Red Sea - Ras Muhamed, Egypt

First dive, first sixty seconds, being startled out of my wits seeing a miraculously large, gentle napoleon Wrasse. Larger and longer than my 6'1" father, who is swimming alongside in full scuba gear, during the first dive into the peerless Red Sea.

Taj Mahal, India

Riding atop an elephants to the Taj Mahal at dawn, and hearing all the parrots and monkeys chatter in the dense trees en route

Sausalito Harbor, San Francisco

Spending a summer aboard a 45' racing Beneteau

Giza, Egypt

First son et lumiere, at the Giza Pyramids, and horse dancing at the foot of the Sphinx, with the local Arabs and their Stallions around a bonfire with tambourines and drums, under a wild night sky.

We were the only Europeans in the crowd that night.

Zimbabwe

Seeing native masks, actually full body length entire costumes of local ghosts and goblins, and buying soapstone sculpture, which we hand carried back to the States.

Tanzania,
Ngorongoro crater

Hyena racing through camp

Gombe Stream National Park, meeting Jane Goodall in person

Bonaire + Aruba and Curacao

Seeing the delicate, colorful Christmas tree 'worms' - featherduster worms, Bonaire, and nudibranchs

Cuba

Lobster fishing, blue hole, and scrounging up candles, matches, butter all in separate places because they were rationed and not available to buy at the hotel or local shops - bartering with locals, and grilling the lobster over driftwood on the beach under the moonlight.

Iguassu Falls, Brazil

Having the coatimundi crawl all over me and my backpack looking for snacks, and, the unparalled majesty of Falls.

Learning about, and then experiencing, our first and only 'moonglow' by the spray of the Falls illimunated by moonlight.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Bungee jumping off Victoria Bridge, Zimbabwe the longest commercial drop of any bungee jump in the world - and taking two days to get over the vertigo

Angel Falls, Kavak Canyon, Venezuela. Seeing the 3 billion year old Tepui, flying within 300' of Angel Falls - spray from the falls coating the windshield of the plane

Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela

Purchasing the freedom, the life of a baby anteater due to be eaten by the local indigenas, seeing them bbq freshwater turtle and tapir, watching them make their dugout canoes.

Venezuelan Llanos

Seeing alligators catch and kill calves, capybara, and watching an enormous (anaconda?) swallow, whole, a live asphyxiated red deer. Listening to Eriberto play harp music. Red Ibis. Fishing piranaha out of the water as fast as a lure hits the surface.

Hang gliding tandem off the cliffs near

Sugarloaf, Rio de Janeiro

Wild Bactrian camel encounter,

Ulan Bator Mongolia

Reindeer herds in Tuva - the vast open steppes with no power lines, billboards or neon.

Western Mongolia

Finding a rancid sheep's head in a non operational refrigerator in Ulam Gom, Western Mongolia, and having sheep's tail blobs of fat, and Russian Vodka, for my birthday, on a months' long Central Asia Dzungharia adventure that included Kazhakstan, some of the Silk Road Cities, and Siberia.

Northern lights - and the Fjords, in Norway

Saone River, France

Swans gliding silently

Balea Lac Hotel of Ice, Romania

Overnight, on blocks of solid ice, and Dracula's castle, Bran Castle, Brasov Romania

Harbin China

Being the only European tourists at the very end of season, 40 degree farenheit below zero, seeing scale size Wall of China, Taj Mahal, Kremlins, and other world features in Ice and Snow, snow sculptures, using sign language (only) to get help from the taxi drivers going to and from the winter showgrounds.

Mekong Delta

Trying to understand the hyperabundance of the brick factories lining hundreds, overall, of kilometers of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and verging on Cambodia

London - Swan Lake Ballet, and the Phantom of the Opera.

Viennese Opera, and, also, in Budapest.

Falkland Islands

Seeing tame wild penguins in the rookeries, including King, Macaroni, Gentoo, and Rockhopper

Beagle Channel, Straits of Magellan

Sea lions and light house

Guatemala

Sunrise at Templo Mayor, Tikal. Swimming laps, almost 3/4 mile one way, across an alligator infested lake, that I later found out was a mortal threat, and being so scared after the fact I couldn't sleep. Climbing Agua, the extinct volcano, swimming in Lake Panajachel, having tea with Sarito and listening to the sound of my friend's bongo drums, learning about Maximon, the cigar smoking and whiskey drinking effigy,

Guatemala - Poas Volcano - sliding down the deep ash slope, with cinder filling our socks and hiking boots, feeling the heat and the power of the sonic fumes, close enough to smell the sulphurous fumes, of the live active volcano.

Bosphorus Straits - Turkey.

Listening to a family friend, Rose Hayden, play the grand piano during sailaway, as the sunset and we had a history lecture of the region.

London

The Lion King puppets and music.

Kairouan, Tunisia

Taking a carriage drive around the rampart walls

Carthage, Tunisia

Learning about the 700 year Cult of the Baal, and the Romans sowing salt and burning Carthage to the ground, in revenge.

The Cothon, and the Carthage Museum, and, the Bardo.

Tibet

Seeing and learning about sky burial. Watching the faithful make a religious pilgrimage the monks chanting, and yak butter tea. three weeks on the Tibetan plateau.

Irian Jaya:

Flying in from Yogyakarta, and visiting Borobodur - learning about the life of the Buddha - and Prambanan temples, where we saw a live performance of the Ramayana, by way of Bali, talking the Indonesian police chiefs into giving us permission Passes, taking a missionary flight and landing in the Baliem Valley, that only less than 50 years prior western missionaries had experienced their first encounter with true headhunting cannibals.

Seeing the Michael Rockefeller Museum in Jayapura, learning of his fate, along with Dani, Asmat and Yali people, in the local vegetable and goods and local handicrafts market.

Seeing the phallocrypts everywhere. Hiking in, unaccompanied but for one trusted travel companion, into the Valley, participating in a roasted pig feast - spontaneously, not arranged for us, as we just happened to wander into this territory at the right time.

That night, we were given the chieftain's hut as a symbol of honor, for our brave arrival into this territory which still had outbursts of headhunting activity, and I remember distinctly, the conditions were so terrible, that we laughed until we cried. The mosquito nets, dirty, unmended, and suspended over a hard board bed rack, with no mattress or coverings of any kind, just a bare board...the nets that were meant to protect us, shook with the movement of the voluble rats' feet as they clambered across the eaves, raining down roaches and rat droppings, mites and lice into our hair and onto our sweat soaked hiking clothes. We had no place to bathe or change, so we slept in our mud soaked gear. I spent that cold night, shivering, awe inspired, humbled, worried about stomach trouble, and mostly sitting upright hugging my knees for warmth and to minimize the landing space for the lice and roaches that were falling and tangling themselves into my long hair.

Seeing the Dani war widows - when they lost a son or male relative, the finger bones, starting with the first joint, and then, if circumstances arose, the second joint of the fingers, of the female relatives, including young children, would be crushed and broken off with dull, terrible stones on the day of the mourning feast ritual. Smoking cheroots, and watching the women and children forage for pig scraps after the better tidbits were first thrown to the hunting dogs. I was allowed to poke my head inside a round thatch hut and see the half shadowed figure of the desiccated, smoked mummy of a revered chieftain, in rigor mortis in a sitting position, accompanying living male warriors who were passing an idle afternoon out of the heat of the day's sun, and asked that he be brought out and examined, so I could photograph him (whereupon a photo tithe was expected, and given).

Gozo, Malta

Making friends with a tame wild octopus during a check out dive in the bay.

Ruwenzori mountains, Rwanda

Mountain gorillas. Being taught to lower our heads, stop moving, make low, placatory grunting sounds and to look askance, in the presence of the troops' silverback, and then climbing steep, forested, dense, thick rooted brushy slopes, so steep we had to pull ourselves up lianas and strangler figs, and seeing first the night nests, then, hours later, the troop of gentle, massive, powerful, mountain gorillas. Even though we were cautioned not to talk or touch them, I was first in line behind one of the familiar guides, to which the gorillas had acclimated, and one of the playful babies came over, ran over, clambered across my lap and grabbed my wrist and camera strap. I couldn't stop myself from making eye contact, and wincing in happiness.

Oman

leaving the ethereal, redolent Al Bustan, scented with pure frankincense and with pure cream-white smooth polished floors covered with handwoven carpets in the vast, almost sacredly quiet, central atrium, once a palace setting where the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) oil ministers met, and driving to the dive spot where, a few days before, one of the Sheiks had capsized his pleasure yacht against the rocks, strewing live gambling chips across the sea floor. The dive highlight was to grab some of the chips, where the most frequently recovered value was the equivalent of $500 USD. I brought up one of the silk cushions from the yacht, but had to abandon it because it was filled with microscopic, smelly marine algae and salt, knowing it wouldn't make it back through Customs. That night, we paid a Nubian driver to take us deep into the local night bazaar, to buy a kilogram of pure frankincense.

Dubai

Spending two nights at the Burj Al Arab, and having the pride in my ability to buy my Saudi client, a man who was importing my manufactured goods for three Royal riding centers in Saudi, dinner at the cantilevered Al Muntaha restaurant, suspended above the ocean, and negotiating the final terms of the export agreement.

Montenegro - having an al-fresco experience at a table, Bastion Restaurant, abutting the centuries old bastion walls of Kotor. Two nights before this, we bought dinner for our local guide, who showed us Our Lady of the Rock. He was an elegant, well spoken naval training officer and an accomplished Conductor of a symphony orchestra who had recently returned from a tour through Eastern Europe. That night, over a bottle of fine but inexpensive local red wine, he told us, calmly, how he had picked up a machine gun and traveled over to Bosnia, to track down and murder as many Bosnians as he could, even though they were genetically and phenotypically indistinguishable from his own family members.