Although the story of Zafar's travel and initial rescue ended very positive, it did have a (for many) unexpected "encore" in store..

After the rescue he was seen multiple times around the Marina at IJmuiden and then went out to sea on the 5th of May.

He was spotted further North while escorting fishing vessles.

Below a video I've put together with some drone footage of the Northsea expedition.

Earlier I learned the hard way that electronics and salt water do not mix well, so flying over salty water with a drone was kind of nerve-racking.

You can get used to it though.. ;-)

While summer arrived and the next big trip was still months away some extra dives in the Netherlands were on schedule.

Even before I joined the NorthSea expedition we planned some NorthSea dives with Dive Post Zoetermeer. Together with my dad I'd go out on our first NorthSea trips.

Later I learned though that I could join the SDDNZS expedition as a photographer, which meant that my maiden dive in the NorthSea would take place a lot earlier in the year.

Have you ever found fossilized shark teeth?

What about finding them in the Netherlands?

As from last year I am exploring the Dutch coastline and waters some more.

Earlier this year we visited the dunes with Scottish Highland cattle, I caught a shark in last years SharkaTag event and I dove more frequently in the Dutch sea and estuaries (more about the latter coming soon..).

Spring is in the air.

Lots of new life is born and temperatures will be warm again in the Netherlands.

We took the opportunity to explore a small nature reserve behind the Dutch dunes close to home and spotted lots of new life too.

Travelling all over the world to see and photograph sharks and other big marine life sometimes makes me a bit blind to our Dutch wildlife.

Making up for that I signed up for the SharkaTag event (pronounced like sharkattack, but different :-) ) joining the boat organized by the Dutch Shark Society.

SharkaTag has been introduced in the Netherlands after its first research projects were held in the past years in the UK.