The Adventure Girl’s Guide has attracted some star support.
Beaut actress and St. Trinian’s star, Tamsin Egerton, is backing my MCS Big Swim, which is only ruddy 3 days away. Gulp.
I met the gorgeous gal during filming for her upcoming role in King of SoHo, in which she co-stars with Steve Coogan and Anna Friel. And yep, she looks that knockout in the flesh. But it turns out she’s more than one of the big screen’s ones to watch; she’s an ocean lover like me.
The 23-year-old has tried scuba diving with her sister – and she says that experience opened her eyes to the wonders of our aquatic ecosystems and the creatures who belong there. She’s got a heart of gold.
Tamsin has donated to my MCS Big Swim – you can show your support too, just by giving whatever you can. Simply click on the Just Giving donate button below.
The MCS Big Swim is now just one week away – and it’s dawning on me that this actually isn’t going to be easy. I’ve never been open water swimming before, despite my love of water and scuba diving. It might sound odd, but being underwater is a far less daunting prospect than swimming on the surface to me.
In preparation for the event, the Marine Conservation Society sent me an email with some last minute tips from SwimTrek, an open water swim specialist. I haven’t had the chance to practise swimming in the sea (one day I’ll live close to the coast!), but they advise that this is a good idea to overcome the fear of what lies beneath. Nice one. Now I’m going to be imagining lady-eating sea monsters chasing me along the whole route.
But a friend who is experienced in sea swims reassured me I’ll be fine. She offered to come training with me in a lake because I need to prepare my body for what’s to come – then she told me that the cold water once made her throw up and pass out in the changing rooms afterwards. Again, this is filling me with confidence.
But this is why you’ve been donating your hard-earned cash to such a brilliant cause – I’ve got to fulfil my end of the bargain now.
Thank you so, so much for all your support – the fundraising has been going brilliantly and I’ve already hit my target. But if you haven’t yet donated, please dig deep and head to my Just Giving page. Every penny counts towards protecting our threatened seas and sea life.
Have you got any tips for swim training? Come have a chat on the Facebook page or follow me on Twitter. //
After I’d signed up to do the MCS Big Swim, I knew I wanted to keep doing more to help save our seas.
So I decided to go one step further with the Marine Conservation Society and applied to be a Sea Champion. I was thrilled to find out I would be joining others in my region to fight for the future of of our oceans.
If you’re already concerned about the plight of our shores and wildlife, I hope you’ll join me in our initiatives to make a real change. And if you’re not fussed and think that the watery world doesn’t concern you, I’ll be doing my best to change your mind that it does.
For now, take this simple nugget with you – the oceans provide 50% of the air we breathe. Without them, we would die. And yes, there’s a frightening possibility that our behaviour as a human race is putting this lifeline at risk irreversibly – in as early as the next 40 or 50 years, scientists predict. This is why I’ve decided to become a Sea Champion and take action now. We can’t put this off and get round to it later; it’s now or never.
I’m so excited to get cracking and meet the other Sea Champions in my region. I already had a chat with my region co-ordinator and bounced off a few ideas. We are going to get noticed! But before we dazzle you with our amazing displays of campaigning (always with your help of course), you can do your bit right now. And the beauty of it? It’s so easy. You don’t need to do any homework or anything.
Eat sustainable fish – the downloadable Good Fish Guide helps you make sustainable choices. There’s so much yummy fish to choose from – don’t just stick to, say, cod, which is being fished to the brink of collapse.
Reduce, reuse, recycle – say no to plastic bags and avoid plastic packaging. Do you want to be responsible for Mr. Turtle choking to death?
Think before you flush. All drains lead to the sea, don’t flush any sanitary items – they may just end up on a beach. Tampons on a beach stroll = not cool.
Balloons end up as litter on our beaches or lodged in animals’ stomachs after being mistaken for food. Just keep a hold of them – it’ll probably save you the hassle of comforting a wailing toddler too.
And do you know the best thing about getting involved in marine conservation? We can make a change if we all act now.
18 months have passed since my last post – you see, life threw me a curveball after my rampant campaigning to win The Best Dive Job In The World. I didn’t win the competition and I won’t know if I could have won – because I pulled out.
I didn’t lose interest; I was gutted to bow out… But I was faced with my biggest career opportunity to date. And it’s why I’ve been AWOL from The Adventure Girl’s Guide for so long. I finally got my break to work for an international broadcasting company and move to London to see what the bright lights had to offer. Life has been on fast forward ever since – I’ve interviewed celebrities, worked on popular TV shows and rubbed shoulders with the (annoyingly) beautiful people – and this site has sat lonely ever since.
I’ve frequently felt guilty about neglecting my digital baby – especially when some of my lovely, regular readers emailed or tweeted me to ask where I’d gone. But as I have finally settled into the Big Smoke, I am now finding time again to reach out to adventurous chums and share stories of travelling and scuba once more. Hope you’ll have me back.
Lovely buns for World Oceans Day
There has also been another motivation for logging back on (5,000 comments are waiting for approval. Cripes) – even though work and the pace of London life has taken the major chunk of my time, I haven’t become a city arse quite yet. I’ve never stopped caring about and getting involved in marine conservation. And to prove it, I’m taking part in the Marine Conservation Society’s Big Swim on 30th June. I’ve never done a sea swim before, so I’ll probably freeze my cupcakes off in my 3 mil.
But I have to ruddy well get on with it now – I’ve been fundraising for a few weeks and gave it a good push this weekend to mark World Oceans Day. The office gals were champion, dressing in blue and eating my buns. They were iced with blue sprinkles and everything. Fnar fnar.
The generosity of friends and sea lovers alike has been so heartwarming – so good to see that people care about our oceans and providing a future for sustainable fishing. And it’s smashing to change people’s minds who haven’t tried any fish other than those on the endangered list: this weekend I headed down to the London Aquarium to see MCS in action and hand out a few Good Fish Guides. One bloke was miffed to hear that he shouldn’t choose cod, but seemed happy to try other types of fish instead. Using your womanly wiles doesn’t harm – lady campaigners, take note. Maybe we should get a bunch of us to pose with sustainably sourced sushi over our lady bits to get the point across? Who’s with me?
The Adventure Girl's Guide 