Shredder can be identified by his jagged dorsal fin, although the story how he got his name is an adventure unto itself. Photo by Steve Hutchings

To be a great white shark, it goes without saying that size is an issue. Yet the undisputed bad boy great white shark at Isla De Guadalupe isn’t that big. But what he lacks in size he makes up in attitude. He’s Shredder, the King of Great Whites and the baddest boy on the block in the shark community off Southern California.

Some folks might take issue with that. And I’m not a marine biologist. My only claim to knowing this 11 footer with a “shredded” dorsal fin is that I dove with him back in 2007. But true to his reputation, he never failed to make an appearance each day – usually multiple – and while some sharks were shy and kept a cautious distance, Shredder always approached the cage, in his sharky way of saying hello, and was always the first shark to take a run at the tuna bait.

The shark diving community knows him intimately, along with the other estimated 120 or so great whites that make the annual migration to the small island off Baja California. And it remains a mystery where they, and Shredder, spend the first six months of the year, though there’s some speculation that they winter in a vast area between Hawaii and the west coast called “The White Shark Cafe”.

There are many, many reasons to dive with great whites at least once in your life. And if you have the privilege of doing so off Guadalupe, you’ll more than likely encounter our feisty friend, who made his initial acquaintance to the guys on the Islander (the boat I went diving with) by biting through the anchor cable. Everything worked out fine, of course, that was just Shredder introducing himself .

Shredder is my absolute favorite great white shark at Isla De Guadalupe (sorry Bruce!). And this one’s for Shredder, for all he does, and just for being the coolest shark on Earth.

Swiss inventor Yves Rossy took Elton John's Rocket Man just a little to seriously

Remember those cool jet packs you saw in the movies as a kid? Well, they’re for real, folks, as we saw this week, when Swiss inventor/daredevil/rocket man Yves Rossy jumped out of a perfectly good helicopter and treated onlookers in Rio De Janeiro and the Christ the Redeemer statue to a little jet-powered ingenuity before landing on Copocabana Beach.

At present, Rossy is the only man ever to have had the pleasure to live out his wildest Jetsons wet dreams, as his jet pack, which he invented himself, is the only one in existence (darn!), though this wasn’t his debut flight. Rossy became the first man every to fly with a jet pack back in 2009 when he did a fly by over the Swiss Alps.

And I thought the Swiss just made clocks and chocolate…

Anyway, a little video of Rossy’s adventures high over Rio de Janeiro in his jet pack. Let’s see how long before he auctions it off on Ebay…

Hang Gliding - the scenery, the adrenaline, risk of death and the undeniable urge to eat a memory stick...

When it rains it pours. And in the past week, two hang gliding accidents in BC have me scratching my head and wondering, is hang-gliding safe?

In the first incident, a women hang gliding in the Agassiz area wasn’t strapped in properly by her instructor, allegedly, and she fell to her death. Even stranger, the instructor was taken to the hospital where doctors, and the cops, are waiting for him to, er, *pass* the memory stick with key information.

Those crazy hang-gliding instructors, I tell ya…

In the second incident, less than three days later, a glider became stranded on a hill and had to be rescued. A little better than the whole death thing, but it kinda makes you wonder if hang-gliding is safe…

Think I’ll stick to shark diving

Rumor has it that test dummies emerged from the Cannonball loop waterslide with missing limbs...

One of my favorite lines ever was in an underwhelming rip-off of a movie, Hannibal, in which a seriously messed up billionaire passed off his extreme vulgarity with a simple “It seemed like a good idea at the time”. Not so different really than this list of 5 amusement park rides at scary amusement parks that were scary, cause they, well, they kinda like, killed people. The Human Trebuchet? Wouldn’t wanna be on the receiving end of THAT lawsuit!

The picture is of a decidely physics-defying loopy thing called the Cannonball Loop at the family unfriendly Action Park, the source of several urban legends, including test dummies that performed the slide and emerged with missing limbs. At least six people died at the park during its run from 1978 to 1996, and if there ever were an idea for a horror movie featuring a demented killer clown with a hook for a hand, Action Park would be it! But alas, Action Park, AKA Accident Park and Class Action Park has since departed us for that list of abandoned amusement parks that dot the nation.

Watch the video below that other grand idea that killed riders, the Human Trebuchet. PS – thanks Popular Mechanics! Er, why didn’t you folks chime up and help these folks develop some rides that didn’t kill people?

I’m not a pot smoker, but when in Rome…or in the case of Amsterdam, you know what the tourists do. They go to a local, er, coffee store, buy a pre-rolled J and light that puppy up. Yours truly did that back in 1999 and spent the rest of the afternoon at the Bulldog cafe watching Michael Bay’s classic Armageddon with some really *mellow* dutch folks…let’s just say that the end of the world never felt so relaxed.

No more. In accordance with a right-wing movement in Holland – for better or worse – in 2013 in will be illegal for non-Dutch peoples to light up in Holland. And that includes Europe’s favorite vice sink. Ever wanted to smoke weed in Amsterdam? You’ve got less than nine months…

But before you run off to the hills and promptly light anything resembling a marijuana plant with your Bic lighter, a suggestion from those crazy off track folks at OffTrack Planet that Amsterdam’s heir apparent is already groomed and ready to toke off as the new it place to spark up in a cloud of pot smoke. Grab your nachos and leave your inhibitions at the front door folks. The new Amsterdam is none other than…Vancouver Canada!

Being a BC native, that doesn’t surprise me at all. There have been rumours of decriminalizing marijuana in Canada for years. Check out Off Track Planet’s reasoning why Vancouver is the definitive place to light up and check out.

Art and JJ of the Amazing Race 20 have proven more than once that nice guys finish first

Now that I’ve whined about the evils of television for the MTV Generation, recent proof that there is indeed such a think as responsible television, and proof that love of one’s fellow man, continues to pull through.

Case in point, two weeks ago, during episode four of the Amazing Race in Turin, perrenial first place winners Art and JJ – both American border patrol officers – once again won their leg of the race, this one being in Turin, Italy. Their prize? Five grand a piece. And when last place runners Mark and Bopper finished the leg, and the border patrol boys saw the spirit of the good natured country boys from Kentucky, and that one of them was running the race so he could care for his daughter, well, Art and JJ hugged the last place Kentucky team and said they’d donate half of their winnings on that leg of the race to Bopper’s daughter.

If you’re an Amazing Race fan, like myself, and you watched the episode, it was pretty hard not to shed a few tears. I think it’s comforting to know that responsible travel teaches us as much about ourselves as it does about the world we inhabit. It’s easy to hurt but it ain’t so easy to help. And when you help a man, you bring good into this world.

Love thy neighbor. That’s what it’s all about folks.

This is an adventure travel blog. As such, in addition to adventure sports, I blog about where to travel, and to that end, I admit, I’m pretty opinionated.

With that in mind, I think Florence is one of the most beautiful and inspiring cities on the planet. To think of the achievements of human ingenuity and creativity from this center of human achievement, as the birthplace of the Renaissance, and which inspired such movers as Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello and Giotto, frankly, it’s inspiring just to mention those names and to think of the beauty they brought into this world.

Just the thought of Florence makes me want to be a better man.

Which is why I take issue with this image, and the cast of that great bastion of humanity at its finest, Jersey Shore, of which during season four, our heroes in low IQ/superficial blissful ignorance transplant themselves to…where else? The beautiful city of Florence, Italy.

These aren’t Italians. They’re douchebags, transplanted by their parents, who once came from that beautiful country, popped out a few babies who quickly adopted this whole superficial thing for looking hot in the moment, with seriously bad fake and bake and an attitude that people are gonna watch these nimrods dumbing down what’s truly one of the finest cities in the world for the price of a DVD.

Michelangelo’s David has inspired humanity for 500 years. And Jersey Shore’s gonna be around about as long as it takes the hole in the ozone from all that hair spray from these inept nitwits to spread, which, by my estimate, is gonna be pretty darn soon.

Bottom line: I think every human on Earth should visit Florence at least once. But please, PLEASE don’t associate this beautiful city with the goat puke propagated on Jersey Shore.

If you're a douchebag and you know it clap your hands *clap clap*

The on-again-off-again Felix Baumgartner space jump is on again, according to statements from Red Bull and various media outlets including BBC .

Baumgartner is, as you may recall, an Austrian daredevil with a penchant for jumping off stuff that he really shouldn’t, but he does anyway, and it makes for some sick video. That’s why he’s awesome. On his list of de-virginized BASE Jumps, Petronas Towers, Taipei 101 and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio De Janeiro. God bless you Felix Baumgartner.

But it’s his next jump, planned for several years now, that I blogged about a few years ago, that’s really gonna drop your jaw. This time he’s setting the record for a free fall – he’s jumping from a location up, WAAAYYYY up, 36 kilometres above the Earth, in what’s been dubbed ‘The Space Jump’.

If he’s successful, the jump will eclipse the previous record, set by Joe Kittinger in 1960, in which Kittinger did a 31 kilometer free-fall. Cojones the size of watermelons that man has.

Baumgartner’s Space Jump, assuming it happens, will have him falling so fast he’ll actually break the sound barrier. That will be the first time man has achieved that speed without assistance from a machine.

BBC and National Geographic are working on the documentary. Will keep an eye on this one…

Watch the video, and hear Joe Kittinger as he speaks of his 50 year old record and passing the torch, so to speak. I still think it’s touching everytime this man talks about working up the courage to set such a crazy record, and how he “said a little prayer” before he jumped.

A confession: I am really bad at tying knots. Fortunately for these demented rock climbers who recently created a 150 foot rope swing on Corona Arch near Canyonlands National Park in Utah, they’re more inclined to tying knots that hold under strain. That’s a good thing, considering this freakin epic rope swing nabs some serious air time and floated around claims of “the world’s largest” til some killjoy killed that one with a link to an even bigger rope swing in New Zealand.

Still, it’s a sick, sick rope swing. Love the video and the hoots and hollers as these guys do the 130 foot free fall and the bungee-esque sling-shot back up. And the cool part – one of the guys proposed to his girlfriend after she took the jump.

She said yes.

Enjoy the video!