Sea Kayaker Sandy

Dear Sandy, WOW. That sums up the impact it had on me today. From a personal viewpoint it was great to be able to listen to your journey as it unfolded before my eyes. Importantly about today – • You present in a very easy to listen style – complete with a range of intriguing slides • Your story flows easily • The anecdotes along the way – pure magic. To “knee-deep” in “shit” and not giving a shit. 🤣 It just gave where you were at, at that point in time. • Images are crisp and allow the mind of the viewer to wander • The Beach Entry with your boat on the boat heading out into massive seas!!! I feel the moment here. • The concept of a plastic free journey is something so valuable and tangible to those of us who are on the water regularly. You highlight an area I hope that the students picked up on. Even though it isn’t an assessable task for them. • You provided them with how your direction in life can be continually changing if you are prepared to let that happen. • You showed them planning and also leaving somethings to just fall into place isn’t a bad thing – as long as they are prepared to solve the occasional problem. • You tailored perfectly to the scope of students needs.  Steve Bews, Lecturer, Victoria University.

Thanks so much for giving your presentation this morning. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it and learned a lot from it.  I thought that you had a very enjoyable blend of pictures and your own narration which allowed the story to flow very easily. Your stories of the people that you met and their lives beyond your own interaction with them were really inspiring because those are things you cannot learn about in books and are a significant part of what motivates me to travel.  James Carmichael, Victoria University, Student

Lecture at Victoria University Melbourne, Australia

Jade Divers, Victoria University Student

A great article from my January trip to India

Have you ever tried couchsurfing? The first time I ever came to India I flew in to Kochi and was hosted by Prasanth and Bindhu through the couchsurfing network. They gave me my first insights into the culture, showed me the sights & made sure I was ok.  Later as I travelled along the coast in Kerala they helped me as needed with translating & advice.  It was so lovely to have breakfast with them when I was back in Kochi in January, and to catch up with the lives of these lovely people who touched my journey.  If you have never tried couchsurfing, give it a go once this world returns to a travel ok state of being.  Or host a couchsurfer in your home and share with the global community the best of your home & culture.  www.couchsurfing.com

In the end: Kayak transport India Style! We thought they could have fitted a few more on.

Trees With Power!  This tree at the finish of our Muziris paddle is in the grounds of Bolgatty Palace in Kochi.  Such a wow moment... I found myself wondering about the things in history and changes in the environment that this tree must have witnessed in its life! Pure joy to paddle beneath it, not so joyous to see the hotel staff ditching garbage over into the water.

On the second day of the Muziris paddle we had a long break for lunch, a chance to socialise or siesta before the final stretch of paddling to Bolgatti Palace.  We all stopped at a house on the waterfront.  It’s so nice to reflect back on these communal times with so many people all enthusiastic about kayaking in India, adventure, challenge and supporting each other.  We are all looking forward to doing this again post-corona.

All I need is a cup of wonderful Chai & I’ll be soooo happy! This is how I like to experience the ‘real’ India, Drinking Chai and meeting the locals! There were plenty of chai stops on the Muziris paddle. When in March I found out that my work had ended due to COVID19 impact, my friend Shreeram told me to just stop and relax instead of all the stressing I was doing, Just stop for a minute. He makes chai and that makes everyone face their problems with a better outlook on the world.

It was fantastic to meet our youngest paddler at the Muziris event this year.  GO MAHI!  Hats off to Asha for paddling the 2 days with her daughter - that’s quality parenting in my opinion!  I hope more kids will get involved in the coming years of this event.  This is a pretty interesting kayak that they paddled as it comes apart into 2 pieces, great for transporting and storage at home in a small space.

Plastic Free Event in action!  So IMPRESSIVE...All of the catering on the Muziris paddle was plastic free.  We were served meals on real plates, the ones in these photos you see with a banana leaf on top to make washing up easy and banana leaf with food waste on it can be discarded for cows to eat or composted in the garden.  It was wonderful to see this stop with the food served to people on the kayaks so we could get the meal stop done efficiently... we always took a huge amount of time at stops where everyone disembarked the kayaks, so eating this way and passing plates out was great to keep things moving.  Glasses of chai were also served. Water bottles filled. And these ladies doing the catering were AMAZING.

Muziris Paddle Day 2, Finishing in Kochi - My job as I paddles was to try and keep the group together.  Kaushiq was on his SUP at the back and if I could see him I was happy.  It was hard to keep everyone together because the front paddlers always wanted to speed off and it was easy to get spread out.  As a team we tried to group everyone up before going under the bridges where there were some dangerous strainers made from obstacles under some of the bridge sections.  We got everyone through safely and were excited to reach the finish at Bolgatty Palace in Kochi.  Kaushiq had to make final speeches and then rush off to go back to Singapore.  We all were given a souvenir photograph and certificate at the end.

We all camped here on the Muziris paddle

Imagine this place and 70 kayakers, that’s where we stayed on the Muziris paddle trip

Muziris 2020 Day 1