National Geographic ADVENTURE

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro The Buzz: Three New Gadgets For Longer Weekends

1) Made of used coffee grounds and wax, Java-Logs fuel low-carbon-monoxide campfires and divert 20 million pounds of coffee from landfills annually ($3.50).

2) There are scads of rechargeable units, but the Duracell Mobile Charger has a handy USB slot to juice iPods, cameras, and phones. It plugs into wall outlets and car power ports ($25).

3) The Eye-Fi wireless SD memory card is a slick way to transfer photos to your computer with out cables ($100).

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Nau: We’re Not Dead Yet

Tobias seems to be very happy wearing a Nau jacket and holding a pitcher of fresh juice.

Text and photo by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

Call it Nau Two Point D’oh: The uber-hip, ultra-eco brand that closed its doors six weeks ago with much lamenting, wailing, and gnashing of teeth (including some by yours truly) is back on its feet—well, knees—thanks to a defibrillator called Horny Toad. The Santa Barbara clothing company and a handful of post-Nauers bought the brand name and are relaunching August 1.

Expect the same Boulder Gothic design sensibility and commitment to sustainability that marked the first Nau. Don’t expect the same business practices, though—Nau’s stores are gone and the clothes now will be sold through independent retailers, as well as its website.

Will it last? Heck if I know. Getting Nau into wider distribution will help, as will eliminating the well-intended but counterintuitive policy that encouraged customers to buy in the store but receive the clothes in the mail. As with Nau, Horny Toad has done an amazing job of creating its identity (in this case, all-American treehouses and swimmin’ holes); the difference is that the Toad’s stuff sells well. As a fan of both Nau’s designs and its eco-idealism, I hope that the Toadsters can provide the right amount of support—and grounding.

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Belkin Phone, SkypeOut Keep Money In

Text and photo by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

Twenty years ago, my photographer friend Larry Pierce called his wife from his hotel room on a remote island in Tahiti, talked for 15 minutes, and unknowingly racked up a $400 bill. Ouch. Last week in New Zealand, I chatted with my family until even the cat was tired of me and it didn’t cost us a dime. Well, barely a dime.

Like 300 million other people, I used Skype, the voice over internet phone system. But this wasn’t computer to computer—I was calling our home line on Belkin’s Skype handset and talking just as I would on a cell phone.

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The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Digging Out from Down Under

Glacier plane landing in the shadow of Mt. Cook, New Zealand's highest peak.

Text and picture by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The National Geographic ADVENTURE fall apparel guide shoot wrapped Sunday afternoon on the southeast coast of New Zealand's South Island. Thanks to Air New Zealand and the International Date Line, I was home by Sunday evening and experienced my longest Father's Day ever.

Now the second wave of fun begins. Today is Boxing Day--all the clothes get cleaned, sorted, packaged, and returned. Then comes weed whacking the nearly 11,000 images we shot over 11 days. Despite our best intentions, we had almost no time for in-depth editing on location--that's the downside of a two-person crew.

The hardest part is holding back the pictures until they run in the October issue. New Zealand was on its best behavior for us, with stunning weather at every turn. By traveling in late fall, we had almost every park, location, and lodge to ourselves. Kris, Linus, and Gabe couldn't have been better models nor traveling companions. They (and New Zealand) did their jobs impeccably--now let's hope I did mine.

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Gear Review: Hobie ATR Standup Paddleboard

Text by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro
Photo by Joshua Scott

Five years ago the only guys who knew what “stand-up paddleboarding” meant were pro surfers like Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama. Since then the sport has invaded beach scenes from coast to coast, attracting converts from outside the surfing world. Fitness fanatics have latched on to stand-up’s full-body workout—you stand facing forward, feet shoulder-width apart, and paddle canoe-style—while hydro-explorers have started using the boards to access hard-to-reach shorelines. The first time I tried it, I enjoyed tooling around my Southern California harbor, but the excitement wasn’t worth the hassle of schlepping an unwieldy, 30-plus-pound beast.

Now comes the Hobie ATR ($1,350). Using molded construction similar to windsurf rigs, the board weighs as little as 22 pounds. For carrying, there’s an inset handhold in the middle: easy peasy. I grabbed it with one arm, zipped across the sand, and in seconds the ATR was blasting through the water as if motorized. If you have decent balance, stability on mellow H2O should be no problem, thanks to the ATR’s lengthy, 11-foot deck (stand-up paddle surfing takes a bit more practice). Give it ten minutes—plus or minus a fall or two—and you’ll be walking on water your very first day.

We're also big fans of the Werner Spanker Paddle ($339; pictured).

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Greetings From Mount Doom

Text and photos by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The forecast calls for 45 knot winds this afternoon, but here at Hapuku Lodge on the northeast coast of New Zealand’s South Island, it’s calm and cool, a gorgeous Indian summer day resting over this extraordinary location. As the Southern Hemisphere slides from fall into winter, five of us are down here in NZ for the next week, shooting the National Geographic ADVENTURE fall apparel and travel guide, which will run in the October issue. So far conditions have been, in Kiwi slang, “sweet as.”

There’s little time to write for the blog right now, but that’s been the story of the last two weeks as my office, living room, front porch, and garage have been invaded by boxes of clothes for this shoot. We have piles and piles of soft, warm sweaters, the best new soft shells, and heaps of the best gear for the coming winter. The number of checked bags range from 14 to 15, depending on how little sleep we’ve gotten and who’s counting.

As with so many of these trips, we’ve arrived here in Kaikoura with plans to shoot less than a day, then move on, but Hapuku is too sublime to leave. The coolest part of Hapuku is the tree house apartments—I’m writing this from the one named Tui—but the grounds are lovely, too. A black rock beach is 300 yards away, snow-covered peaks seem close enough to touch, and there’s a major seal colony just ten kilometers from us.

Today's setting couldn’t be more different from yesterday morning. After a 5 a.m. departure from Chateau Whakapapa in the middle of the North Island, we drove through Tongariro National Park and waited for the sun to rise on the eastern side of the peak that served as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. Clouds foiled our plans, but frost covered the volcanic plains provided a stark visual image with which to plan.

We’re burning daylight, as the saying goes, so it’s back to work. I’ll do my best to get images posted as we go….

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Another Roadside Attraction: Montezuma Valley, California

Photo by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Molokai Wins Development Fight, But At High Cost

Text and photos by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The hand-painted signs are posted on trees, mail boxes, and front porches all across Molokai. “No to La’au Point”, they say, or simply, “No”. Living’s not so easy on the Friendly Isle, where jobs are scarce for the 7,500 residents, as I found out when the magazine sent me there last November to shoot a cover. But the people cling to their way of life, resisting the tourist pox of other islands, and have doggedly fought the proposed La’au development on the pristine southwest corner of the island.

Now the developer has fought back: The Singapore-based landowner closed its beautiful lodge at Molokai Ranch and fired all 120 employees.

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The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Gear Review: SPOT Satellite Messenger

Text and photo by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The most important outdoor product of the last couple years isn’t a jacket, trail shoe, kayak, or mountain bike. It’s the SPOT Satellite Messenger, which lets you call for help almost anywhere in the world via the Globalstar satellite network.

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The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Swimming with Sharks

Text and photos by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The first time you swim with sharks should be dramatic. There should be storm-tossed seas, fang-like Farallon Islands jutting from the water, hungry great whites thrashing as the first mate chums stinky fish guts overboard. You’re shivering into your cold chain mail shark suit as the grizzled sea dog captain growls, “Arr! Don’t be a-worryin’, lad! I’ve only lost three customers to the sharks—this week, harhar!”

Yes, that would be a great shark story.

But it’s not my shark story. For me, there was no “arrr”. Just three six-foot grey reef sharks--and me in my underwear.

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