It might of started off as a little bit cold, however by the time the 67 paddlers hit the water, the conditions were absolutely perfect, except for the fact there was debris to be cleaned. Courtesy of a grant from Seaworld Research and Rescue Foundation and & Healthy Land & Water, we joined forces with Bulimba Creek Catchment Coordinating Committee to clean up the area of Bulimba Creek next to Preston Road Park. We had Read more
The culmination of our Yarra River Blitz was a Paddle Against Plastic event. These events are growing rapidly in popularity with paddlers of all types invited to come down and help clean up the river. We find that by creating a ‘Treasure hunt for trash’ people start seeing the real state of the waters they paddle on. Usually before they participate in one of these events they don’t see as much debris, however when you Read more
For years, I have dreamed of owning a Spinlock PFD as they are the very best inflatable flotation devices on the market. They are comfortable to wear and have the best reputation on the market. With our new boat ‘Salter’ due to launch in the next week or two, we needed to fit out the boat with all the safety gear and I contacted the crew at Spinlock Australia to see if they could support Read more
Courtesy of a sponsorship from the team at Ocean Addicts, we held a very important Paddle Against Plastic event yesterday out of the Ocean Addicts SUP hire center at Cotton Tree. Rather than just your simple clean up, this time we had a message to spread, and that was the statistics of how much debris our team pulled out of Sunshine Coast Waterways in 2017. Ocean Addicts made available 40 of their fleet of SUP’s Read more
There are some days that you walk away from an event just shaking your head, and that happened at yesterdays Paddle Against Plastic at Bulimba Creek in Hemmant. So close to Brisbane city and a major tributary into the Brisbane River, the state of this creek is simply DIABOLICAL. In the two days leading up to the Paddle Against Plastic event, Mark & Maura Harvey headed out onto the creek in their ‘Canoemaran’ and collected Read more
Our second Paddle Against Plastic on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast was set up to finish cleaning Stumers Creek after a team of 18 paddlers had managed to pull 107kg of debris out back in June. We had a focus of cleaning up the area closer to the mouth and with the obvious meeting point being at the Off the Leash Dog Beach at the end of Stumers Creek Road, that meant we had access to clean Read more
Coming to the end of a big journey like this is bitter sweet. The feat of actually finishing is one thing, however the fact that it is over is another thing all together. When you add to the fact that you are departing Fiji, well it really is a mixed feeling. We both loved Fiji and wanted to spend more time, but home was calling and the need to get home and get back to Read more
One of the things I never did in Fiji when I was here last was go diving. We were running windsurfing and kitesurfing tours so a few snorkels were about as close as we got to the action. There were two dive sites in particular we wanted to check out. The Salamander Wreck and the Supermarket. The Salamander is a 30m cruise ship that was deliberately sunk and lies in 27m of water. The Supermarket Read more
Waking up in Fiji means waking up in Fiji time. There is no hurry to do anything and as we had a whole weekend to fill in before we could get to the islands, that’s exactly what we did. We arose and had a casual breakfast before heading off to catch the bus into Lautoka to go to the markets. The bus comes to the front gate of Vuda Point Marina. They are basic buses Read more
In 1998 and 99, I ran windsurfing tours to Plantation Island in Fiji from Sailboard Headquarters in Melbourne. I took a photo on one of those trips of my friend Brendon windsurfing back towards the beach. In the distance behind him is a yacht sailing past a white sandy beach. It was the inspiration behind getting a yacht and running windsurfing charters in Fiji which I succeeded in doing in 2002 with my good friend Read more
