Get All The Latest Expedition Updates Via:

Feb. 05 2010 - Toronto - I'm back in Toronto after my latest Asian explorations. On a whim, I decided to started my stopwatch as I was leaving the guest house in India and I turned if off when I finally reached my front door at home. The total travel time was 43 hours!   Coming up - I will be speaking at the gala dinner of the Explorers Club Film Festival coming up on March 5th and 6th in Toronto.   The festival will showcase numerous programs and documentaries of exploration from around the world. It is sure to be an interesting time with plenty of tales of adventure.   Everyone is invited to come. Please see the poster for more details.   ..And yes, that's me on the poster, climbing up a huge frozen waterfall in Alberta.

Jan. 31 2010 - Kshitij 2010 - Kharagpur, India - After a great series of adventures in the United Arab Emirates, I've relocated to Kharagpur, India where I am a guest speaker at Kshitij 2010 which is Asia's largest technology management festival. It is held each year at the India Institute of Technology, one of the most prestigious schools in India. One of the most incredible things about this festival is that it is completely organized by the students.   I gave my presentation on the Saturday and the response was so great that I was asked to give another one on Sunday. Each time, the theater was packed with about 1000 people. Everyone at IIT was so welcoming and warm, I felt right at home.   Kshitij also featured lectures from film makers, physicists, entrepreneurs and many others plus it showcased robotics & computer programming competitions, 3D holographic motion capture demonstrations and other eye popping technologies.   One very cool part was learning the ancient art of breathing fire. On my last night there, a few of us were practicing it in one of the courtyards... It was fun and spectacular (not to mention dangerous)

Jan. 26 2010 - Shark Diving in the Dubai Aquarium - What a surreal experience. After several days of diving along the east coast of the United Arab Emirates and Oman with poor visibility, the "Angry Planet" crew moved on to a spot where we were guaranteed to have clear water, plenty of fish life and an abundance of sharks...   The Dubai Mall!   SCUBA diving inside this massive aquarium was so much fun. Everywhere you looked, there were grey reef sharks, sand tiger sharks, rays, giant grouper, moray eels, you name it! The craziest part was being at the bottom of the aquarium and watching sharks swim past only a few feet away and seeing people in the background shopping in the mall's stores and shops. Very weird, but wonderful.   The aquarium is about 40 meters long, 20 meters wide and 12 meters deep.   This mall is just one example of the countless extreme engineering projects that have been built in this incredible city.

Jan. 23 2010 - In the Empty Quarter Desert (United Arab Emirates) - The vastness and inhospitability of this place is overwhelming. The sand dunes stretch on forever and our pace getting through them is slow. Every few seconds we have to re-evaluate our route and adjust according to the terrain. There is no such thing as driving from point A to Point B in a straight line.   Despite the harsh, hot days, windy, cold nights, blowing sand and endless wasteland, I find myself really loving this place. It is an intimidating, daunting, hellish landscape almost completely devoid of life but yet it is beautiful and enchanting at the same time.   Last night we camped out close to the Saudi Arabian border and I realized that most of this desert lies beyond its borders. This place is so vast that it is hard to wrap your head around it.   It's like being on another planet. A planet made of shifting sands where very few life forms can survive and any underestimation of nature's power could spell disaster.   More photos from this incredible place can be found here.

Jan. 11 2010 - Departing for the Empty Quarter - I'm in the final processes of getting ready for my next expedition. This time I'm off to the Middle East to explore the Empty Quarter which is a huge, almost completely uninhabited desert wasteland that stretches across 4 countries - Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. The Empty Quarter (also known as the Rub' al Khali) is one of the most harsh places on Earth filled with huge sand dunes and not much else. This desert is larger than the Netherlands, Belgium and France combined!!   My journey will begin in Abu Dhabi and then I'll be taking a four wheel drive vehicle out into the vast emptiness. This should get interesting...   This trip was originally supposed to have happened last month but for various reasons, it was postponed until now. In addition to the Empty Quarter, I'll be spending a few days in Dubai and then I'll be diverting to India briefly.

Jan. 05 2010 - House Fire - At about 1:00 A.M. last night I was out photographing a 4 alarm house fire in the Beaches area of Toronto.   Firefighters were called to Wheeler Ave. just before midnight where they found a home under renovation engulfed in flames. 20 fire trucks and 85 firefighters were called to battle the blaze in the house which was gutted for a major renovation. Flames spread to two adjacent homes, with total damage estimated at $1.5 million. A couple and their five-year-old child were evacuated from one of the neighboring homes.