Will Conner (m): Being on the craft every day that we get to be on it, it’s truly like moving meditation, this whole journey.

HOST: Greetings from Australia and welcome to another episode of Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants！ Today’s show takes us to the nation’s East Coast where we will meet some of the benevolent members of the TransparentSea project.

David Rastovich (m): TransparentSea was a concept between our group of friends, where we wanted to do everything that we enjoy all in one. And so that’s be out in the ocean, be focusing on the issues that are critical at this point of time, pollutants in the ocean, whales in jeopardy from whaling fleets, and pollution and sonar testing, you name it.

HOST: To highlight these issues and others concerning the health of the marine environment, the friends undertook a ７００ kilometer voyage aboard sailing kayaks down Australia’s East Coast, from Byron Bay to Bondi Beach, a journey that began October １, ２００９ and lasted ３６ days.

This specific stretch of coastline was chosen as it is the same route the endangered humpback whales take when they make their annual migration between Australia’s northern coastal waters and the Antarctic Ocean.  
A ４４- minute film entitled 『TransparentSea』 that documented the trip was released in March ２０１０.

David Rastovich (m):And we wanted to use our positions as photographers, as surfers, writers, and people who have the good fortune to be able to blow a whistle on these issues. And so we just came up with the idea of being able to do all that in one, and join the whales in their migration, and from there it had a lot of energy where it just started attracting the right people.

We started collaborating with the Surfrider Foundation, and Tangaroa Blue (Ocean Care Society) and the Sea Shepherd (Conservation Society) of course, and our own group 『Surfers for Cetaceans,』 and then the surfing industry came on board.

HOST: The TransparentSea crew was headed by former World Junior surfing champion and vegan David Rastovich, who co-founded 『Surfers for Cetaceans』 an Australian non-profit organization seeking to protect dolphins, whales, and other marine life.

For more details on the TransparentSea project,
please visit:
TransparentSeaVoyage.com