Category Archives: Photography

Drago and Starfish beach, Bocas Del Toro

Posted on May 7, 2012 by | 2 Comments

Bocas has five beaches that are in close enough range from the main town to get to. But the furthest one away, Starfish Beach is the most beautiful out of the bunch.

Drago and Starfish beach blend in to one long stretch of sand along the Northern territory of Isle Colon. You can get a local bus from the high street of the main town that takes you an hours drive to the beach and back.

There are a few nice restaurants at both beaches as well as lounge chairs on Starfish beach and hammocks draped between random trees.

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© All images owned by Yazmin Malcolm

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Springing Up From The Ruins: Tantelo

Posted on April 12, 2012 by | Leave a comment

If you head to Panama City the best place to be is in the old part of town called Casco Viejo. The new part of town looks beautiful from afar but as soon as you get up close you see that there’s not much there at all, not even a high street or nightclubs, which is what I was on the hunt for.

Anyway, Old Town is full of exciting colonial and Spanish inspired buildings that are completely run down, with trees growing out of them or a whole family squatting in these gorgeous ruins.

The area is slowly being taken over by money, and is being made-over with luxury boutique hotels, wine bars and restaurants. A good example of what we can expect from the future of Casco Viejo is a restaurant that we visited called Tantelo.

We had the executive lunch, which consisted of a huge chicken or pork burrito with patacones (mashed-up plantain that’s fried) and a refillable drink for $6.50. In the evening we sampled the normal tapas menu, the food was well made and tasted good but the portion sizes were quite small for a high price, so don’t venture in if you are on a tight budget.

We were then given a queue jump pass to go to the roof terrace, which was a very popular destination in the evenings from Thursday to Sunday.

© All images owned by Yazmin Malcolm

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Posted in Food, Photography, Travel

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Panamians playing football on the airport’s runway

Posted on February 29, 2012 by | Leave a comment

I’ve been staying (well, kind of living) in Bocas Del Toro, an island off the Caribbean coast of Panama for the past 4 weeks and have another 3 weeks here before I move on so Yaz and I have decided to start documenting this fascinatingly interesting and quirky little island.

Across the street from where we live is the one and only airport amongst the Bocas Del Toro archipelago. The big expanse of land holding the airport’s runway is also home to the island’s football pitch, complete with subs benches and a stand for the 20 – 30 strong crowd (although we’ve never seen a full turn out).

When planes take off or land on the runway, no-one on the pitch bats an eyelid and they just carry on as if they’re playing at Wembley Stadium while we shit ourselves and duck as if the plane will knock our heads off as it passes over. See the plane in the background about to take off?

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Underwater Life in Bocas Del Toro, Panama

Posted on February 28, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Since we’ve been on the quirky island of Bocas Del Toro on the Caribbean side of Panama, we’ve all done our Advanced Open Water Diving with La Buga.

It seems to be one of the cheapest places to learn to dive. We paid around $225 for our course which consisted of four dives including two lessons of your choice, we picked buoyancy and underwater photography. Here are some of our shots from the dive:

Aaaand…Our mate Jill, who is a videographer and editor for Neverdry came and videoed the boys on one of their fun dives. I’m not diving in it as i had a boring ear infection! Take a look at her video of us here:

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Hello Mrs Sloth!

Posted on February 23, 2012 by | Leave a comment

While having a few beers and sunbathing on a beach on Carenero Island in Panama, we met a Sloth and its lil baby!

The Mummy Sloth was feasting on leaves only a few feet above our heads. Apparently it is quite a rare site to see them so low down, they only come to the floor to do their poops and then head straight back up the tree.

Not only was it a rare site to see her so low but we got a good glimpse at her baby that was clinging on to her stomach. It was so tiny!

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Sting rays jumping out of the water in Mexico!

Posted on February 6, 2012 by | 4 Comments

Check out how rad these sting rays are in Mexico. There we are sitting on the deck of the yacht having dinner and some beers and we hear a slapping sound as if one of the nearby yachties has belly flopped off their cruiser into the drink. We turned round and saw some whopping great big rays launching themselves out of the water, flapping their wings like a bird and then slapping down to the surface with an almighty slap and splash. Cool huh? All shots are owned by Yaz and you can see more on her Flickr soon.

Go check them out in Bahia Los Frailles, Baja California, Mexico if you’re ever there.

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Sunny and Soggy Sydney

Posted on January 30, 2012 by | 2 Comments

Well I made it to Sydney twice over my travels. I have come to the conclusion that the city, no doubt has bi-polar weather. It just so happened  whilst I was in Australia, the worst summer they have had in 50 years. Some days I admit it rained, however I also found myself  caught up in a heat wave that scorched up to 37°C.

Arriving from Hong Kong, but back to a western style of living I still experienced some culture changes. The biggest things I picked up on were:

1. You can’t by alcohol in supermarkets. You have to go to a ‘bottle shop’. A lot of these are in fact Drive-Thru boozers. Does that make any sense?

2. Woolworth‘s is a thriving supermarket that sells absolutely everything you need, and not a run down sweets and toy shop.

3. Without any warning at 2 am a nightclub transforms into a Football loving pub. I went to the toilet and returned to the music off, the clubbers gone, and Arsenal v Norwich kicking off. Not only is it strange watching your team scrap a win at 2am, it’s even weirder following a heavy session of Jagerbombs.

4. The cost of living in Sydney is very expensive. For example,  $3.90 (£2.70) for a small bottle of coke, not on my watch sonny boy! On the other hand, buy a bigger bottle and get your name on it!

Places I recommend:

New South Wales Art Gallery

The Rocks, Sydney Harbour Front.(below) A great place to stop for a drink, enjoy the harbour views, explore some unique market stalls and buy a kangaroo bollocks bottle opener.

Wake Up! Hostel near Central Station. – Out of all the hostels I stayed at in Oz. Wake Up was certainly one of the best, cleanest, and spacious. I stayed in a 10 man room and had my own lockers, loads of space and no waiting time for the bathroom. It’s quite pricey, but believe me sometimes it’s not always better to go cheaper in Sydney.

Hyde Park Barracks ( below)

Take an interesting, and quite cheap (with a student/young persons card) tour of the old prisoner barracks restored to its prime. See how the UK’s prisoners lived and were distrubuted into developing Sydney.

Hyde Park – It’s not as big as ours but its just as epic!

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Posted in Other Stuff, Photography, Travel

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Travel Photo Of The Week: Sun set upon a glass-like ocean

Posted on December 13, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Yeah so you remember when I was doing a Travel Photo Of The Week post each week and that I haven’t done it in ages? Well look what’s back on the blog.

This is Yaz’s shot taken just before sunset one day from the bow of the yacht we’re sailing across the Pacific ocean in. There was fuck all wind so we were motoring for most of the day but had switched off the engine to give it a rest and for half an hour we just sat there on the smooth glass-like ocean with no sight of land in any direction and no sound other than whatever noise we made ourselves. So awesome.

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Whale watching in Mexico. Fuck yeah!!

Posted on December 5, 2011 by | 5 Comments

So there we were the other day sailing along taking photographs of this nice little yacht in front of some mountains and a bloody great big whale launches his lardy arse almost clean out of the water before right in front of the boat.

There’s a bit of perspective to take into account but look at the size of that thing in comparison to the yacht!! Unfortunately we didn’t get a shot of him trying to fly but this sequence gives you an idea of the scale and enormity.

These are Yaz’s images so leave off yeah, unless you e-mail her very politely asking for permission to use one. Cheers lovelies. Oh, and check out the piccy’s of some (of many) dolphins swimming at the bow of our yacht too.

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Dolphins at the bow of our yacht!

Posted on November 16, 2011 by | 5 Comments

 

We were not alone sailing around Catalina Island last week as we were joined by a school of common dolphins who swam alongside our bow.

 

Along with these guys swimming with us were probably about 75 to 100 more dolphins (and seals) jumping out of the water all around us and more on the horizon too - presumably because of a load of fish there.

 

Probably the most amazing thing I have seen.

 

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