My next series is inspired by the island of Bora Bora in French Polynesia. Many new paintings are coming soon! French Polynesia is currently closed to tourism, so I’m grateful that I was able to travel there back in August 2020. It’s difficult to talk about this trip since it was during the pandemic. I…
Tag: Scuba Diving
Moorea Travels
Ia Orana/Hello! I somehow magically lucked out and was able to travel to French Polynesia two months ago. I took a break from painting after I returned, but I’m back and starting my next series inspired by the island of Moorea. Many new paintings are coming soon! My Moorea dive movie is up! Apparently manta…
COCOS, CHAPTER 5: Return to Manuelita
On the backside of Manuelita during the first dive, I watched a gang of whitetips swarm the reef until I was distracted by a cloud of bigeye jacks approaching us from the channel. As the jacks descended onto the reef, they instantly split off into pairs; one jack remained silver and the other turned black…
COCOS, CHAPTER 3: Dirty Rock and Alcyone
Over the next few days, it was hard for me to stop thinking about the magic of Manuelita. All I wanted to do was dive with more tiger sharks. But, the other divers wanted to find hammerhead cleaning stations in the deep waters surrounding the island. Fights erupted over any diver who unknowingly entered a…
COCOS, CHAPTER 2: Tiger Sharks and Boobies
Divemaster Angelo began his briefing for the first dive: “As all of you have probably heard, there were some recent incidents at Manuelita. A diver and a divemaster surfaced away from the rest of the group. When the tiger appeared, the divemaster thought he was doing a good thing by kicking the tiger shark to…
COCOS, CHAPTER 1: Journey to Cocos Island
The immigration agent was engaged in a serious texting conversation as she asked me, “Where are you staying?” I answered, “The Cocos Okeanos Aggressor.” She continued to text in silence. I elaborated, “It’s just a boat at Cocos Island.” She eventually looked up, “Where is that?” I answered, “Um, it’s an island here…hopefully?” I glanced…
