Done it ! Managed to establish a new world record for Stand Up Paddle relay across the English Channel with myself, Jock Patterson and Simon Basset completing it in 5 hours 38 minutes and 25 seconds. We had fog banks, dolphins, tankers, French Coast Guard, seals and finally champagne. What an experience. Thank-you to everyone who supported me!
I really want to support Surfers Against Sewage or SAS as they are known. They have been working on all levels to keep out coastal waters clean and safe to go into for 20 years.
I am going to cross the English Channel in June 2010, as part of a three man relay team, on my stand up paddle board for SAS, all you need to do is donate, I will do the hard work for you !
If you or your children live by the coast, or go into the sea during the summer time in the UK, you will have benefited from the work SAS have been doing. Their campaigning is both local and international, it might be a beach clean up, or they might be working campaigning at Westminster or at the European Parliament to raise the standard of our waters.
Back in 1993 I was a student in Swansea, surfing whenever I could. After one session at a break called Crab Island in Langland Bay myself and a number of other water users became ill as a result of sewage contaminated water. The SAS were campaigning with Welsh Water at the time for better sewage treatment facilities, as at the time all of Swansea's raw sewage was pumped out into the sea. The campaigning payed off and in 1996 a £90 million treatment plant was opened, benefiting beach users all over the Swansea/Gower area and beyond.
SAS have been working on projects like this all over the UK for the last 20 years, that is why I support them, that is why I am asking you to support me.
Read our training blog on the
Stand Up Paddle Global Magazine website for more information.