Pete Thomas Outdoors

Sailor Zac Sunderland and father to appear on new season of 'The Amazing Race'

The sailing Sunderlands are back in the spotlight as Zac and his father Laurence will appear on the new season of the popular CBS reality show, "The Amazing Race," which premieres Sunday night.

Zac gained fame in 2009, when at 17 he became the youngest person to have sailed around the world alone.

His younger sister Abby made international headlines a year later, when she tried a solo-circumnavigation at 16, but became the focus of an intense rescue effort after her 40-foot boat became disabled in the Indian Ocean.

Laurence and his wife, Marianne, were relentlessly criticized for allowing both children -- but especially Abby -- attempt to sail around the planet by themselves.

 Now Zac, 19, and his dad are featured in a show that pits 11 teams in a race around the world for a $500,000 first prize. Among other competitors are Olympic snowboarders, twin sisters, a former NFL tight end and former "Survivor" winners.

 

The Sunderlands, who live in Thousand Oaks, Calif., went in as heavy underdogs, Laurence said, because the homeschooled family was raised largely without TV.  As a shipwright busy supporting Abby's adventure, Laurence last year turned down an offer to be part of the Emmy-winning series.

"I said no and they asked why and I told them I didn't know what the show was about, because I don't watch television and because I'm a busy person," he said.

Another invite came this year and Zac persuaded his father to accept. Their feeling was that his 13-month adventure, which featured stops in 13 ports, had prepped them for this kind of competition.

"The Amazing Race" fosters antagonism among teammates and Laurence, though he could not divulge too many details because the series hasn't aired yet, said that he and Zac endured many squabbles when they teamed to deliver yachts from port to port as part of his shipwright business.

"We've been put in tight squeezes before and we generally pull in the same direction when it's all coming down on us," Laurence said.

Zac said one of the biggest challenges was sleep deprivation, which he had to deal with often on his sailing adventure. "I think that and all my travel helped me out a lot with being able to acclimate to a different way of life and a different culture," he said, without divulging how his team fared. "And being able to figure out a way from Point A to Point B even with a bunch of craziness going on."

''The Amazing Race" airs on Sundays at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific times.

As for Abby Sunderland, she's enjoying a different kind of spotlight.  The documentary about her adventure, "Wild Eyes, the Abby Sunderland Story," won the People's Choice Award at the recent Big Bear International Film Festival in Big Bear Lake, Calif.  It also picked up Best New Director honors at the Silent River Film Festival in Irvine, Calif.

Laurence Sunderland, who recently launched WorldWind Productions, directed the documentary.

-- Image showing Zac Sunderland (right) and his father during the filming of "The Amazing Race" is courtesy of CBS and protected by copyright laws

Expert takes extreme measures for great white sharks

An understandable reaction for people who may find themselves in the water close to a great white shark, without the protection of a boat, would be fear, perhaps followed by panic.

But Chris Fallows, who runs Apex Shark Expeditions in South Africa, has taken extreme measures to prove that the world's most fearsome-looking marine predator may investigate but will not attack a human except in very rare cases during which a human is mistaken for a shark's natural prey.

Most recently, Fallows paddled a stand-up surfboard alongside a 14-foot great white inside a clear-water bay (see photo and video). The footage is part of an episode called " Great White Invasion," which will air during the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" at the end of the month.

Fallows, a renowned photographer who is regarded as an expert in shark behavior, described the experience as "fantastic and exhilarating."

 

Great White Invasion, produced and directed by filmmaker Jeff Kurr, will attempt to explain how large white sharks do come close to shore in all parts of the world "but that they actually have far more to fear from us than we do from them," Fallows said.

To illustrate this point Fallows appears to have tempted fate on behalf of a predator responsible for the deaths of 26 people worldwide since 1990, according to the Florida-based International Shark Attack File. (That's a tiny number considering that millions of people swim or surf in the oceans every year.)

Said Fallows: "To prove this point I have free-dived, paddle-boarded, body-boarded and kayaked with them, as well as being dragged on a sled less than 15 feet from a breaching great white. In essence, I have done pretty much everything that a shark is likely to encounter in the form of a human. In virtually all instances the sharks chose to ignore me and it was often a battle to get them to come close."

That's good for Fallows and, of course, for the reputation of the sharks.

-- Images showing Chris Fallows paddling near a great white shark and filming a shark while free-diving are courtesy of Discovery Channel

'LIFE' videographer recalls plunge with fighting humpbacks

The humpback whale "heat run" is among the more dramatic events in the wild kingdom. The female rolls over at the surface, slaps her pectoral fins to signal she's ready; she then swims off with as many as 10 male leviathans in close pursuit while fighting for the right to her affections.

It's an pic clash between 40-ton mammals who ram and even leap and crash down upon one another in a mating ritual in which there's only one victor.

Roger Munns has witnessed this first-hand. The renowned videographer placed himself in the middle of this furious episode to obtain footage for BBC's recent "LIFE" series, which has gone to DVD and will re-air this summer on the Animal Planet.

Munns, who handled the underwater shooting, and his crew members are the first to have successfully captured an entire heat-run sequence on film. He was asked to recall the experience and whether he feared for his life.
 
"There was adrenaline pumping, that's for sure," he replied. "Each of the whales is about 500 times my weight and all of the whales only had one thing on their mind. The best way to describe the experience is to imagine standing on the freeway facing the oncoming traffic and having 8-10 trucks hurtling out of the gloom toward you.

"My main fear was that such single-mindedness would mean that the whales wouldn't see me or wouldn't care and I would get knocked or banged by a fin or fluke. I almost got into trouble at one point when I was out of air and looking to the surface.

"I started kicking and looked up only to see a big male overhead coming straight down towards me. Not what you want to see when your lungs are bursting. Luckily he passed in front of me and didn't block my route to the surface but I'll admit to being a little concerned for a moment."

The footage was captured off Tonga. Munns and his team spent 24 days there. They made lots of dry runs but found a heat run developing on the 17th day. Munns used no scuba gear, only a mask. The technique was to get in front of the heat run, dive from the boat and film the whales as they passed.

Travis Pastrana to soar 250 feet in a rally car tonight in Long Beach

I once rode in a rally car with Travis Pastrana around a tight X Games track and the experience was a harrowing blur, not unlike a ride on a mega-roller coaster.

I would not like to be in Pastrana's car tonight as he rings in the new year by jumping his street-legal Subaru more than 250 feet from a ramp on the Pine Street Pier in Long Beach to a barge near the Queen Mary.

The freestyle motocross legend and perennial X Games star, who now races rally cars professionally, told me the idea was born on the simple premise of how far a person might be able to fly in a car. He plans to jump between 250-270 feet, shattering the world record of 171 feet, set by friend and fellow adrenaline junkie Ken Block.

The jump is part of the annual Red Bull: New Year, No Limits extravaganza and will be televised on ESPN beginning at 8 p.m. PST.

Pastrana, who will use a hand-brake and throttle to control his car's trajectory, will play the wind much like a golfer. But if his shot is errant, he concedes, it's the player who will suffer the consequences, which could be serious if you consider he'll hit the takeoff ramp at about 100 mph and will travel more than 25 feet over water and must land smoothly in a sweet spot to avoid ending up in the chilly harbor.