Start Here: Part I and Part II of my dive trip to Isla de Coiba. With limited electricity on Isla de Coiba, we soon returned to the rhythm of the land — dozing off no long after sunset and rising naturally before sunrise. On our third day in Coiba National Park, we made the short walk…

Though whale sharks and manta rays had eluded us, I would rate our first day in Coiba National Park with Scuba Coiba as a pretty solid awesome — we’d swum with a school of thousands of jacks, spotted four frogfish, frolicked on idyllic abandoned beaches, watched dozens of white tip reef sharks slink by, met a majestic…

I often equate diving to a form of aquatic yoga — relaxing, meditative, weightless. Isla de Coiba destroys that analogy. Diving there is no yoga — it’s a tough mudder. We’re talking low visibility, deep depths, thermoclines with 10°F  temperature drops, and currents so intense you have no choice but to cling to a rock until…

Diving in Peru? It might not be one of the first adventure you associate with the country (the Inca Trail just steals all the thunder, doesn’t it?) but we’d soon discover it was an unexpectedly impressive one. Originally we had attempted to dive in Lima, tempted by the offshore sea lion colonies. But the prices were…

This week brought me back to my happy place — the beach. After two months of past-paced, constant travel and an intense workload of blogging and freelance projects I’ve been teetering towards burnout. I can’t stop meeting deadlines and — let’s face it — I’ve got workaholic American blood in my veins so I wouldn’t want…

Here’s how a chain reaction works — Alex goes to see Blackfish, a documentary about Orcas in captivity, and can’t stop thinking about it; Alex rents Free Willy, a movie about a little boy who releases an Orca from captivity back into the ocean; Alex remembers that she never posted about the shark release she photographed…