After three gruelling months at sea, Two Oceans Aquarium ambassador and Cape Town’s own Chris Bertish has become the first person – ever – to cross the Atlantic Ocean on a stand-up paddleboard (SUP), alone and unassisted.
Chris announced the SUP Crossing expedition here at the Two Oceans Aquarium in July last year. Many wondered if what he was planning was possible at all, considering it had never been done, but Chris was convinced, as he is in all spheres of life, that if you believe in yourself enough anything is possible.
And he proved himself right with the SUP Crossing, which culminated in Antigua yesterday 9 March 2017.
Arriving to a crowd of supporters, Chris looked incredibly strong and even more driven than before, if not physically a little different than when he left Morocco on 6 December 2016:
Chris Bertish is famous for a number of reasons: In 2000, he won the Mavericks Big Wave International surfing event on the biggest wave ever recorded in the history of the sport. In 2001 he was the first person to paddle in at Jaws in Hawaii, then in 2009 – trading surfboard for SUP – he became the first person to SUP Nellscott Reef in Oregon, USA. 2010 saw him become the first person to SUP Dungeons in Cape Town. His list of broken records is very long – have a look on his website to get the full picture.
Chris is the heart, soul and face of “stoke” in the international surfing and SUPping community and his indelible spirit – believing that, truly, anything is possible, and then going ahead and realising the wildest, craziest dreams – has become the core driving force of his incredible message of resilience, hope and perseverance.
A message the world can certainly use in this time of environmental uncertainty.
It is for this reason that everyone here at the Two Oceans Aquarium invites you to join us and salute, commend and thank Chris Bertish for leading the charge for the ocean.
To us, Chris is also a different kind of hero. He is a loud voice for the endangered turtles of the ocean, who can’t speak for themselves. As a key supporter of the Two Oceans Aquarium’s turtle rescue, rehabilitation and release programme, Chris has become an essential part of the work we do to raise awareness of the plight of turtles and, more broadly speaking, of the health of ocean.
On 1 December 2015, our turtle rehab-and-release team, Chris, and an incredible group of ocean enthusiasts, photographers, filmmakers and ocean ambassadors travelled from Hout Bay, over 30 nautical miles due south, to release 57 turtles, big and small, into the warmer ocean currents off Cape Point.
“Life is short, follow your passions, do what you love, love what you do, have belief in yourself and never ever give up. Persevere no matter what odds are thrown against you.” - Chris Bertish
“We never doubted Chris’s ability, determination, and well craziness to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean,” says Two Oceans Aquarium Curator Maryke Musson. “We just were not quite sure whether he would be faster than the loggerhead turtles, who are true ocean travellers and follow that exact route. Chris is clearly the ultimate waterman as he won, not just the Chris versus turtle race, but the hearts of pretty much the entire world with his journey, which was dedicated to helping children and creating ocean conservation awareness.”
We were stoked to get some time with Chris before he left on the SUP Crossing to talk about his inspiration, the planning that went into his journey and his reasons for doing it in the first place:
“We had such great feedback from this little short film – it is Chris telling us about Chris – at the Aquarium, a place which he really loves," says Maryke. "Huge big well done to our friend and ambassador – and we are looking forward to the next adventure, which not surprisingly, is already being planned.”
We can’t wait to see what our hero and inspiration Chris Bertish will get up to next.
Here are some of our favourite images take Chris took during the SUP Crossing. Be sure to follow his updates on the Official Chris Bertish Facebook page.
