Inspiring others to try a new sport

After seeing our first plastic bottle SUP, a friend from São Paulo asked us if we could help him build a board.   We were delighted, this was exactly the response we had hoped to get!  We want to encourage everyone to re-connect to nature and try a great, new sport – that is part of our marathon mission.  Franklin had never been paddle boarding and did not want to spend a lot of money on a new board until he had tried it out and knew that he liked it.  However, he liked the idea of using recycled materials to build his own board and once we told him about the cause and the fact that so much plastic pollution ends up in the ocean – he was determined.  It was great for us too, we had just started planning our marathon expedition and we definitely needed to practice building boards as the first one took us over a week!  We wanted to get building process down to about 2 days.

So one sunny weekend, we got a group of friends together. It was amazing how much easier the task was with a few helpers, a couple of beers and, in true Brazilian style, a churrasco (bbq).  A few days later, we took the board to Guarapiranga Lake in São Paulo for Franklin’s first paddle.  He loved it and was a natural.  We paddled all over the lake and stopped for a short break at a little island.  Sadly we discovered that the island was a great spot for plastic to accumulate and once again we were forced to face the reality and scale of this huge global problem of plastic pollution.

Plastic Island in Guarapiranga