When we were contacted last summer by Jimmy explaining that
he was coming to the UK for a couple of months and would love to get involved
with Sea Champions we certainly didn’t want to turn a kind offer of help away
so our solution was to make Jimmy and his sister Claire honorary Sea Champions!
Read on to hear about their marine conservation adventures as they made their
way round the UK coastline.
"In the beginning of July 2014, my sister Claire and I made
our way to London and then out west, and ended up helping at a stand on an insanely
cramped beach in sunny Weymouth, England. Here, this story begins, that being
our adventure along the stunning British coastline.
I’d chosen to get in touch with the Marine Conservation
Society (MCS) prior to leaving Australia to organise some volunteering. Coming
off a cracker of a summer on the Victorian coast, having thrown myself into
everything from rock-pool rambles to night time snorkels chasing dumpling
squid, and a few days micro-chipping fairy penguins in between, I was pumping
with energy and enthusiasm to continue to help out wherever I could, even if
that was in a foreign land.
Volunteering with MCS introduced us to a new way of
travelling. We continued to explore but now with a new twist, one with a deeper
purpose than simply taking in the towns, countryside and people on display. We
started to see the coastline as our own, with our holiday time allocated to
cleaning beaches of vast piles of rubbish rubbing off on us, forming a sense of
ownership that transcends homogenised ‘borders’.
We offered MCS an opportunity to visually promote large
tracts of the British coast from the eyes of a road-tripper, live, through social
media such as twitter and Instagram. Each night, as Claire was settling down in
her half-broken tent, I was in the two-door car with my knees around my ears,
uploading and transferring the days photos to multiple locations, and sharing
info we’d discovered during the day as well.
We ran numerous beach clean ups along the way in Wales and Scotland;
on the tip of the Gower Peninsula, at Tresaith (the first heritage coastline in
Britain), outside Tenby (with its low-tide stranded boats), on the Ynyslas sand
dunes, and on multiple lochs (Lyne, Long, Sween, Broom). Whilst at Brighouse Bay
in southern Scotland, Claire and I focused solely on counting the strands of washed
up rope from the fishing industry. We picked up over two thousand pieces
between us, in a little under an hour! Terrible.
Volunteering on the road wasn't easy, and in hindsight I
would've liked a few more weeks to really take our time, staying in spots for
days rather than hours. But return to the ‘real world’ we must, with a further
appreciation for how huge and diverse the world is, and a priceless collection
of memories.
Now it’s time to work on my own country’s coastal problems –
teaming up with the Australian Marine Conservation Society for the “fight for
the reef” campaign, whilst taking the environmental message to all that can
listen.
To the passionate people we met at MCS, we thank you all for having us
on board as honorary Sea Champions, and wish every single one of you the best
in the fight to protect and save British waters from those that the waters have
(again, ironically) protected for centuries.. Peace!!"
To read Jimmy's full story or peruse through a few more of his beautiful seaside photos pop on over to his blog It's Jimmy Nails
Here's a quick update from Jimmy 6 months on: "I'm now co-coordinating the Victorian branch of the Australian Marine Conservation
Society (AMCS) down here, with heaps of events and our major campaign ticking
along. It's been an amazing learning curve and experience the past six months.
We've had a Rally For The Reef, dive shop talks, national park and marine
protected area walk'n'talks, beach cleans, organising invasive species
workshops. I'm loving it!"
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