Been some time since my last blog post, and I have to be honest, I don’t really like writing. But either way, I’d like to share my latest goals / dreams of my life.
Over the years, I had a chance to try out and learn many different sports, many that I still do and practice to get better at. There’s still a few sports that I yet would like to add to my activity list: such as base jumping, white water kayaking, and hang gliding (and if I ever have the money for, learn to fly a helicopter). Lately I have realised that I have another passion: Photography. I have realised that passion after I broke my ankle from canyoneering. It gave me lots of free time to learn the essentials of photography, and over the past few months it has grown on me. My dream now is to be a professional photographer, and I would like to incorporate photography into all of the sports that I’m into. I would like to explore the world through many different means: air, land, and water… I still have many skills that I need to learn both in photography and in exploration skills, and still got lots of investments to make for the gear I need (my next one is going to be an underwater housing for my camera). This is going to be a long journey, but a worthy one!
Here’s just a few pictures that I have taken the past few months (for more visit my facebook page: Edgar Bullon Adventures)
The day has started off really well, we got to Squamish early, got the gear ready, put on our wetsuits, and were ready to cross the river to reach Monmouth Canyon. The river crossing was fairly easy. We put all our bags into a cheap inflatable boat, and we swam beside it, letting the current of the river take us 1 km downstream where the trail to the top of the canyon began. The hike up was steep and fun! Definitely not a place one would want to be falling from!
Once we got to the top, we took a quick break to get organized, had a few bites to eat, and commenced our way down the canyon!
The Monmouth Canyon is a beautiful place! Most of spots like these are hidden from a normal day to day person, so it feels amazing to be able to go explore them! We rappelled many different waterfalls, some involved cliff jumping, some sliding and jumping. The water was freezing, so even with our wetsuits we were always trying to stay moving to keep warm.
The day was amazing, until on one of the rappels, I have slipped, hit the wall, and let go off my “break” which led me flying down 15 feet onto the rock bottom. Right away I felt something was wrong with my foot. I looked at it and it was dangling sideways. Right away I knew it was screwed, I thought maybe I have just dislocated it, and I tried to ‘pop’ it back together with no success. So now, the challenge was to get out. I didn’t want to waste much time, so I crawled out of the canyon, with help of my friends found a stick, and slowly was making my way down the mountain. Meanwhile my friend got a hold of search and rescue, once we found the most suitable spot for helicopter extraction (there wasn’t much), we called in our coordinates and waited for search & rescue to arrive.
It took over 2 hours for search & rescue to figure out how to extract me due to the difficult location. Meanwhile I was slowly going under a mild hyperthermia. I was contemplating just to make my way down myself while I was still somewhat able to before the sun went down. But before that happened we were notified that the search & rescue have found a spot to extract us and are sending help our way. When they have arrived and stabilised my foot, I felt all the energy came back to me and I felt super excited to get rescued! The helicopter ride was awesome! And perhaps was the only upside of having broken my ankle. I want to thank the search and rescue team for rescuing me, and also to my friends and team members that helped me get out of the canyon safely!
Out in the Squamish Hospital, they took good care of me quickly. They have had to reposition my foot before putting a temporary cast before I get my surgery, so they put me in a semi-conscious state that made me go on a super awesome mental trip! The next day I was moved to Surrey Memorial Hospital where I waited 4 days until my surgery, I didn’t enjoy the waiting part so much, I would have had to wait more but luckily I had a nurse friend that was able to pull a few strings to get me in a little quicker. Thanks for that!
Here’s a couple videos from that day. One has made the Right this Minute internet show, (my second time getting on that show lol). Here’s the link.
“It’s just another day in paradise!” an old man cheerfully replied after greeting me at a coffee shop on my last day of the trip. Oregon is definitely a watersport paradise that I try to get away to as much as I can! This trip had a very different feel to it since I went with a couple of my windsurf enthusiast friends on their old school camper van. That was my home for the 5 days we were on the road, on the road chasing the wind!
Our first stop after a long drive during the night was Hood River. We have arrived at 3 o’clock in the morning, pulled in the side of the dirt road, prepared our camper and fell asleep. Next morning after breakfast, we head to the river! Unfortunately the winds weren’t the best that day, it was either blowing so strong that I was being completely overpowered (which was scary and awesome lol) or the wind was very low that left me mostly frustrated. After a few runs across the river trying to find the most windy spot, we just came back and grabbed our beer.
The next day the water was flat with no sign of any wind, we headed towards Jones Beach that’s closer towards the Oregon Coast since the forecast was much more promising. Being sluggish and unmotivated, we took our time and only made it to Jones Beach around 7pm. There was still wind, and I quickly rigged up my sail and went in the water to windsurf until the sun went completely down, was an awesome experience! We found a spot to park around the trees by the beach, and I was happy that I didn’t have to unrig my gear, leaving it overnight for the next day. We were all excited about that spot and the winds for the next day were promising. I went to bed satisfied that night.
The next morning, we were woken up by an old man who turned out to be the beach property owner. And apparently we weren’t allowed to stay there overnight, and we were told that we had to leave by that following night. So our plan to stay the rest of the trip at that perfect spot was ruined, either way the winds didn’t turn out to be so great that day. But that spot would be amazing when the wind condition is good, it’s such a beautiful spot! I will definitely be coming back there!
That night we have stayed at a city park in Clatskanie, they have overnight 5$ camping with hot showers… It felt great to take a hot shower after a few days without having one! The next morning we went back to Jones Beach to find it completely windless, everyone was disappointed because it was our last day until we had to head back to Canada. Everyone just wanted to stay at the beach, drink beer and chill. But that didn’t satisfy me, so I pushed everyone to get on the road and head to the coast which was an hour way where I could at least do some surfing. Luckily I was successful at making everyone agree to drive to the coast, because right after we passed Astoria (little town right before the coast on Columbia River) the winds were heavily blowing! So all excited and full of energy, we were looking for a spot to launch from. We found this beautiful beach in Fort Stevens State Park, quickly rigged our gear, and jumped in the water. This session was awesome! It made the whole trip worth it! Haven’t had that much fun windsurfing in awhile… Unfortunately I ended up breaking my mast after a couple hours of windsurfing, luckily I was within 500 meters from shore, but it still took what felt like half an hour to swim dragging my windsurf and sail in the water behind me. It would have been a much harder to get back if it broke on me when I was a couple kilometres away from shore. Later on my more experienced windsurf buddy explained what I’d have to do in a situation if I was far away from shore, I’d have to take apart my sail and tie it all up on the board to create less drag, a lesson that perhaps will come in handy one day.
That night we had found a nice open field where we parked our camper and drank watching the starts! Was an awesome trip! Altho it wasn’t all fun, there was much of work that had to be done, mostly by loading and unloading our gear every time we changed location or were stopping to sleep, at the end of the trip we got very efficient at it and it didn’t take us too much time as it did in the beginning. We have also cooked most of our meals in the camper, which is very different from what I’m used to when I do my road trips. It was a different experience overall for me, which was great!
At the hook in Hood River
On our way to Jones Beach
My buddy chilling between windsurfing sessions at Jones Beach
Teaching a less experienced windsurfing friend how to beach start. Jones Beach
I have been eyeing this rocky island for quite some time every time I would drive on Sea to Sky Highway. This weekend I finally had my chance to explore it!
The day started off with me looking at my options at what I could be doing during that beautiful sunny day. That’s when I got a call from my buddy who wanted to do something adventurous, so I proposed to go explore the island that was on my list to explore. At first I thought about paddle boarding to it, but there was no more rental available for my friend, then we tried to get a sea kayak (which would have been the easiest chose of transportation besides a motor boat), and once again we had no luck with that either. So we have decided to take my friends old canoe.
Right after we loaded the canoe and got in the water, we have realized that the canoe isn’t really designed to be used in the sea. Waves were coming into the canoe, and had to make lots of stops to “cap” the water out! Eventually, after struggling thru the wind and uneasy sea, we made it to the island.
The seals weren’t as excited upon our arrival as we were, they all jumped into the water from there nice and cozy spots as we docked the island. For the entire time we were there, over 30 seals were having their heads out of the water staring us down. They didn’t seem to be pleased.
Eventually I put on my wetsuit and my dolphin fin to go freediving, hopefully I could pass as their own. Unfortunately they didn’t go for it, they all scattered away as I swam underwater to join them. One of my dreams is to interact with seals underwater, I guess that day wasn’t met to happen lol.
It was a really cool mini adventure, I would love to come back to that area again with scuba gear to do deeper exploration! (I wish I had a boat lol)
Area location map
Map – location of the Island
Black dots in the water are seals staring us down lol
On Sunday morning, was slowly waking up in the cosy bed I’ve made in the back of my car listening to the rain drops. My plan of driving to Kamloops to skydive had to be cancelled because of the weather. Wasn’t able to rock climb too since it was wet. Me and the climbing group went to Tim Hortons to decide what to do for the day. Someone has suggested to go explore a cave, we all agreed. I thought it was going to be a very simple cave, but I was quite surprised, this cave turned out to be not quite a walk in the park as I expected!
By the time we got to the “Cave Hill,” the rain has stopped and occasional sunshine was poking thru the clouds. The rock was still wet at that time, and to get to the cave entrance, some scrambling and unprotected climbing had to be made… Nothing feels better than climbing on a wet slippery rock! (sarcasm lol)
Eventually we got to the entrance and made our way in. The cave had lots of areas with big drops where we had to pass on a ledge, some were very slippery! One of them made me a little nervous, there wasn’t any good hand holds and the ledge was very wet and slanted towards a drop, felt like any moment I would slip and wouldn’t had no way to save the fall. At one point we got slightly lost and some people started to panic. Many just wanted this to be over and done with, me I actually felt very excited being there, perhaps this type of adventure isn’t for everyone! When we finally found the exit, we had to make a final move to squish thru the opening, I got a little nervous at that point after realizing that I wasn’t a very good fit for it (at that moment I wished I was skinnier lol)… After several tries I squeezed myself thru the hole, after feeling my chest being squished!
It was a great little adventure, I enjoyed myself being there and would definitely recommend it! Just be safe!
Here’s one of my dilemmas: I love to catch up on sleep on the weekends, but at the same time I love to take a full advantage of the day. The two don’t go hand in hand. On Saturday I decided to compromise my beauty sleep for a day full of fun! Got all my gear ready the night before so as soon as I woke up at 5:45am I was out the door on my way to Squamish!
We started our day with climbing at Murrin Park. It was still chilli in the morning, but as soon as we started climbing, the clothing layers were slowly coming off. The whole morning we were glancing at the wind charts, and by around 1pm, the winds picked up high enough for us to head over to “The Spit” in Squamish to windsurf. It was my first riding session this season, and it was amazing! The wind conditions were just perfect for my level, it’s been awhile since I had my share fulfilled windsurfing!
As the winds slowly started to die off, we got all our gear packed up, another decision was waiting to be made: What do we do next? It was 6pm, we still had two and a half hours left of daylight, so why not go back to climbing! We climbed pass till the sun went down into the night! At that moment I was thinking: What a great day it was!
The next day, I decided to sleep in until 8:30pm. Being super sore from the day before, I wasn’t too prompt at leaving the house. My first stop was at the drop zone in Pitt Meadows, I was hoping to get one skydive in before I head to Squamish to windsurf. Unfortunately they didn’t have a load available any time soon for me to get a ride to altitude. So I decided to meet my buddy at his place where I met his roomies, and fortunately I came at the right time when they were making breakfast, I was served the best salmon egg benny ever!
After having my appetite filled with delicious food, we were on our way to Squamish! Unfortunately the winds weren’t as great as they were the day before, so I decided to leave earlier and go to Porteau Cove to freedive.
The freediving session went great. It was my first time freediving at that wreck diving site, the wrecks aren’t too deep (40 to 70 feet), but it’s still a little further than my comfort level. I got scared a couple times, specially freediving by myself and knowing that if I pass out underwater there would be no one to save me. It’s a little scary feeling to be dropping towards the darkness, everytime I keep on reminding myself to stay calm and not panic, it will not help to panic but only get you into trouble.
One thing that I found was interesting is having a couple murky layers underwater. The first time I dived, I had one of the layers confused with the bottom, later to realise that it was just the end of the murky layer underwater, and I still had to dive deeper to get to the bottom. Unfortunately I couldn’t record any videos because my GoPro froze right when I was already in the water (so couldn’t take it apart to get the battery out for it to restart).
Overall this week has been awesome! Looking forward for more weekends like this!
Rock Climbing at Murrin Park
Windsurfing at The Spit
Trying out different gopro attachments
Windsurfing at The Spit
The Spit in Squamish
View from our second climbing spot: Smoke Bluffs
This wall is called Neat and Cool at Smoke Bluffs. My partner second to rappel down after setting up a top rope.
Lately I felt I needed to push my limits once again, I wanted to see what it feels like to go scuba diving very deep. So I decided to go down almost twice as deep then I have ever gone down to before this dive. I know that other people have done it, including my partner, so I wasn’t worried about it… on the contrary I was very excited.
From the beginning, my first mistake was to not get myself familiarised with the new dry suit that I was renting out. I felt too complacent with diving, and from what I’m learning lately, this is not a very good state to be at because that’s when things start to go wrong.
We got all suited up, and went into the water, ready to submerge. Right from the beginning I had trouble with buoyancy, I couldn’t get the air out of my dry suit with ease, after a bit of a struggle I submerged to meet my partner who was waiting by a cliff that quickly drops off. We gave each other the Okay sign and began submerging down into the abyss. As we were submerging, the colors were slowly changing from green, to dark green, to eventually full black, until we couldn’t see any light at all. Eventually we reached our planned depth, where both of us stopped and gave each other another Okay sign. It felt unreal being that deep, I took a moment to appreciate being there. I then glanced at my gauges, and at that moment I had a huge head rush… I felt very light headed, and felt as if I was about to faint. Nitrogen Narcosis was playing its part on me…
At that moment, I felt scared. I thought I was going to die if I were to pass out. The place that I was initially excited and in awe of visiting now felt like a nightmare that I was trying to “wake up” from. I slowly started to ascend, breathing faster with each passing moment, trying my hardest to stay conscious. I looked at my partner, who was watching me ascent, knowing that there was something wrong.
As I was getting higher, my rate of climb was increasing due to the increase in buoyancy. I had to let some air out from my dry suit to allow a more gradual ascent. This would allow the nitrogen in my body time to dissolve (it’s dangerous to shoot up very quickly to the surface). For some reason though I was having trouble letting the air out from the dry suit, I was actually closing the valve instead of opening it. Another example of how I did not familiarize myself with the new dry suit before starting the dive. At that point I started to panic a bit, and after some struggle, I realised I had still some air in the BCD and I let it out. This stabilized me at that particular depth and I was able to relax and get my mind straight.
My partner caught up to me, signed me asking if I was all right, I pointed out that I had a problem with getting the air out from my dry suit. We stayed at that depth for a little while, until the point when I looked at my gauge and realised that I was low on air. I was really surprised how fast my air was gone! I still needed some air to stay at 15 feet for a few minutes for decompression. So I pointed it out to my partner, and we started to ascend.
Once again I was having trouble with buoyancy when I went up higher, and I had to hold on the rocks to stay at 15 feet depth for decompression. As the decompression time was up, I was already taking the last breaths from my air tank. When I finally surfaced I had no more air in my tank.
I was lucky to have an experienced partner with me when things went wrong. He really helped me out in this situation. My partner told me that this is a good lesson for me to be diving with a partner, since as he told me: “You were getting too cocky with all your solo diving and all.” A good lesson for me it was…
Here’s a video from my go-pro of my emergency landing after the engine failed on take off. Read full article here.
I’m also very surprised how fast this video traveled without any sharing or advertising on my part. Here’s a couple popular sites that I noticed where this video has been featured: Right this Minute and Daily Mail.
Still to this moment I’m in disbelieve that this happened to me, and glad that my friends and I walked away from it.
Here’s a video of my first time jumping from a helicopter last year. The rush and excitement makes that first experience awesome! The feeling is much different than jumping out of an airplane!
Edgar Bullon 