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.

Scroll down for linked world map

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

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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.

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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.

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Longsheng Terraces,

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

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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

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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.

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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.