Top 10 Worst Moments of 2016

Me and tech gear just don’t get along. I have a tiny, sad graveyard for broken external hard drives and smashed cell phones.

A lifestyle on the road leads to a higher likelihood for accidents occurring and this year, the accidents came in waves of drama and stress. Although I haven’t yet blogged about some of these issues (but will!) here is a sneak peek into the less glamorous things that happened to me this year.

(But don’t worry, I’m looking more positively towards 2017 and better luck with tech gear and health! And 2016 wasn’t all bad, I’ve had 20 great moments as well!)

1. We crashed our car into a bridge in Iceland (and yes, we actually did care)

After driving 4000 kilometres around the country and with only 100 kilometres left to go, we hit an icy patch on a bridge and crashed our car head-on into the guardrails of the bridge. Thankfully the railing held and insurance covered the damage. Unfortunately the snow plow drove past only ten minutes later.

2. I broke my brand new Macbook Pro laptop screen because a moth frightened me.
If you didn’t know, I have a very strange phobia of moths. They terrify me. So much so that in a panicked state while a moth was chasing me in Panama, I hopped off the couch and my new Macbook hit the ground smashing a corner of the screen. Again, thankfully travel insurance covered the $1000 bill.

3. My cellphone was stolen in a taxi in Panama

The only photo that remains of the whale shark: a screen shot of the video I sent to my mom before I lost my phone.

Left behind and never returned, my cell phone took its last trip in a taxi in a small city in Panama. Also on the cell phone was a memory card with photos and video footage of the first whale shark of the season seen while scuba diving around Isla de Coiba. The loss of this footage still makes me sad.

4. I broke a surfboard in Costa Rica and needed stitches in my foot.

The before-the-accident photo!

All because of one final (too big) wave before sunset. I was overeager and tumbled over the board into the wave. The bungy attached to my ankle slingshot the board back to me, smashing into my foot and slicing open my heel. Needing stitches but with all the doctors offices closed for the night I attempted to steri-strip the wound and spent several weeks hoping for it to heal faster. The worst part was realizing my heel had broken the fibreglass of the surfboard and I would be out the cash to pay for the damage.

5. My car was towed and impounded in Canada for being parked in front of my apartment building.
In the same week that my Macbook broke, my cell phone was left behind and just before I sliced my foot open, a family member called to let me know my vehicle had been towed back in Canada. Although I’ve lived in the same location for more than 10 years, someone felt my car being parked on the street for 6 days was warrant enough to tow it. A few hundred dollars later I finally got it back. But I admit I wasn’t too happy about it.

6. My brand new camera stopped working 2 days before I was to board a boat in the Mediterranean as an official videographer for 2 weeks. And then the new camera I bought was stolen.

A view of the camera with the lens off and the shutter stuck closed.

This was a whole long and dramatic story I blogged about here. It was a bit of a nightmare. Thankfully I managed to get a new camera just in time. Eventually my broken camera was fixed after two months away on warranty. My bank account is still hurting from the purchase of the new camera.

7. My luggage was lost for 8 days while I was trying to work abroad for two different companies.

The glorious moment I was reunited with my (now damaged) luggage.

This wouldn’t have been as big of a deal if I wasn’t dealing with the camera nightmare from above and the insane story in the point below while trying to work professionally abroad in Europe. The trip admittedly burnt me out and I spent a week watching Netflix when I returned to Canada just to get back on my feet from exhaustion and health issues.

8. A blowfly (still not certain what it was) spit its eggs into my left eye and they hatched into more than a dozen worms that needed to be removed by an ophthalmologist. And then one managed to make its way into my nasal passage and I spent almost 4 months trying to get doctors to help me deal with it.

One of many interesting doctor appointments. Always an entertaining story.

A post I have yet to write this was a medical horror story. It took four months to actually resolve the issue and I still feel scarred by the experience. Yes, a fly spit its eggs into my eye which hatched into worms. Thankfully I am not blind, the parasite is gone and I am okay.

9. I dropped and lost my driver’s license and visa credit card in Victoria, Canada – and needed it to fly back to Saskatchewan in a week.
Thankfully there are beautiful humans all around the world and someone picked up both my credit card and drivers license and turned them into the police station. I was able to successfully fly back to Saskatchewan without missing my flights.

10. My new cellphone stopped working only a week before I was to fly out for two months to South America and Antarctica
My new cellphone not yet a year old suddenly stopped working. I realized just how important of a lifeline it is to the world when I was phoneless for a week. Thankfully warranty and an insanely fast turnaround time had the phone back in my hands the day before I flew out to South America.

Important lesson learned this year? Medical and travel insurance are the most important purchases you can make if you are travelling. If you can’t afford travel insurance, you can’t afford to travel. My insurance covered more than $5000 worth of damaged and broken tech gear, car rentals and health expensives of which most were not my fault.