A short video of our first trip to the Flower Garden Banks in the Gulf of Mexico.  Seemingly endless and pristine coral formations, along with copious marine life (reef fish, barracuda, eels, etc.), made for an amazing weekend getaway so close to home.

I was looking forward to coming home—born and raised in Los Angeles, I lived several of my early adult years in the San Diego area. After spending a few days in Los Angeles catching up—and putting on what felt like 5 lbs of weight due to home cooking—I headed southeast to the suburbs and then to San Diego to catch up with old friends, eventually meeting up with my wife to end the trip encountering leopard sharks in La Jolla Cove. I last saw a leopard shark over 20 years ago in the kelp forests off La Jolla, so I was looking forward to visiting one last old friend, this time from the comfort of the shore.

A quick video showing the beginning of the goliath grouper spawning aggregation in South Florida. Every year, schools of hundreds of goliath groupers aggregate at various dive sites in southern Florida to spawn. It’s always quite the spectacle to see.

The world is so vast that often we can’t even see or begin to imagine the largest of marine phenomenon occurring right before our eyes. When you fly into Cancun International Airport and see the vast Caribbean blue waters from the air, little do you realize that during the months of May to September, the largest whale shark migration in the world is occurring. Known as a “whale” for its sheer size, these animals are in fact fish and not mammals. They are sharks, to be exact, and both the world’s largest shark and fish species growing up to 30-40 feet in length.

Almost exactly two months to the day, we found ourselves once again in Baja California for our second planned trip of the year. This time we came in search of mobula and cownose rays, something that’s been on our bucket list for a while. Our second motive was to finally visit the famed sea lion colony in Isla Islotesafter threatening to do so for several years. Given that the Sea of Cortez is abundant with large wildlife this time of year—whales, orcas, whale sharks—we kept our fingers modestly crossed that Baja would have more in store.

Sometimes a work trip doesn’t start out as one. No pre-determined agenda, just a blip on your journey. Here I was down in Playa del Carmen on an otherwise meaningless trip to take care of business that comes along with owning a home in a foreign country, when I found myself yearning for an opportunity to do something good for the ocean.

When we came to the Cabo area last October, we decided that we would start making regular trips to Baja throughout the year. I used to visit parts of Baja regularly when I lived in California—having grown up there—but living in the DC area for 20 years made Baja somewhat of an inconvenient trip. But now that we’re in Houston and a short direct flight away, we’re out of excuses. Makos, blues, mobula rays, sea lions, marlins, bait balls, and the occasional whale sighting seemed like a good start to build a yearly schedule around.

Almost a decade ago, my wife and I fell in love with Belize. In fact, we bought property there in hopes of building a modest home near the ocean where we would spend the rest of our active lives diving her pristine reefs and atolls. As the saying goes though, best laid plans of mice and men; new nests in Houston and Playa del Carmen, and a world-wide pandemic later resulted in several years since we last found ourselves in Belize.

If there’s one thing I can say about 2023 it’s that sharks have ruled our airwaves so far. After spending two weeks in Playa del Carmen diving with the bull sharks, we headed over to Jupiter, Florida to spend a few days with the lemon sharks. The lemons start to migrate around this time of year for what Floridians call the lemon shark aggregation, so we were hoping to catch a few. They did not disappoint.

This November we took our annual trip down to Playa del Carmen to catch the migration of the bull sharks. The sharks tend to start showing up by October and can stick around until April. However, we missed them last year because they had migrated out by the time we visited in January. We weren’t about to miss them this year, so we went early in the season.

Off a literal beaten path and a healthy trip away from the beaches and tourism of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, is a gem that I’ve been wanting to visit for years. Fortunately, we got the opportunity this October to visit for a few days and explore the area; assessing its viability for us to promote marine conversation via photography and videography. While it was a quick trip, it certainly did not disappoint.