When CWF’s Recreation Education Manager #DamianFoxall is not in Canada promoting our Wild About Sports program he’s overseas racing around the world on sail boats! The world champion sailor, originally from Ireland, promotes CWF’s Best Practices on the Water wherever the wind blows him. He blogs for CWF about his adventures to encourage conservation of water and wildlife.
As the Sail Arabia Tour has taken us form the Indian Ocean teeming with life, we are now in the Arabian Gulf where after six legs we have a few days of inshore racing.
There is a clear contrast of moving from the naturally beautiful and traditional Oman to the ultra-modern gulf cities. The Abu Dhabi skyline was hidden from us on arrival by a sandstorm which looked like a good Canadian whiteout but plus 45 instead of minus and a little more dusty. As we sailed into Doha last night the city lights welcomed us to a night sky of high rise hotels each with their own lavish architecture.
Despite this the gulf seems to have a lot of sea life and amazing sun sets. We have regularly past large turtles, jumping fish and of course the now familiar beaked sea snake. Stil, by far the most common thing we now see on the surface even far offshore is the ubiquitous floating bottle fish doomed to drift forever around the gulf until a hundred years from now they become plastic sand.
I am still guilty of slaking my thirst every now and again from a handy plastic bottle of water and despite the obvious excuse that still today most events don’t offer a real alternative, of course this is the worst of reasons as it is our individual role to lead by example, and so with the nightmare images of this invasive species taking over our oceans I have renewed motivation to avoid adding to plastic bottle fish population.
Race Results: EFG Bank (Monaco) leads the Sailing Arabia tour with 4/5 wins and one leg to go.
CWF
Our mission is to conserve and inspire the conservation of Canada’s wildlife and habitats for the use and enjoyment of all.
