A Voice for the Ocean

It began growing up on Jersey, a little island off England’s south coast. From as early as I can remember, I was down at the beach with my grandad, bodysurfing and spending all day there with him. As I grew into my teens, I would be spending as much time as I could at the beach, surfing with my friends. 

It was the surfing that really sparked my fascination with the ocean - surfers probably spend more time in and around the ocean than anyone else, waiting for the waves and the wind and the tide. I found myself spending time just looking at the waves, often being more interested in watching them break than I was about catching them. I started seeing the beauty in the world in those moments. 

Alongside my passion for surfing, I had a growing interest in photography, so I wanted to find out how I could get in the water and take pictures. I got my first water-housing for my camera when I was in my teens, so I would swim out and take pictures of the surfers. All surfers want a good picture of themselves! 

But really I was more interested in taking pictures of the waves, and the world under the water. I think that fascination is in my blood — our world is constantly changing, and it’s a beautiful thing to just sit there and take it in.

I’m interested in everything — in people, in seeing the world, in travelling. I don’t specialise in one area of photography, I take interest in the people and places around me and I capture that. 

One of the uniting themes is that I’m always trying to tell a positive story, even in difficult situations. When we’re working in India investigating child labour and human traficking, for example, I tried to capture the perspective of the people who are trying to do some good by helping get these children off the streets and into school. 

With my ocean photography, I’m trying to give a positive voice to the ocean, something which is so important for encouraging people to take conservation seriously. 

There’s a lot of negativity in the world, so I try to bring positivity and light through my own story telling.

I founded Ocean Culture Life when I was working in Hawaii. I was meeting lots of other people there with a connection to the ocean — from lifeguards to shark conservationists — and I saw that they had knowledge and skills that weren’t shared in other parts of the world. 

I thought that if I could use my work as a photographer to tell their story, and then share it with those doing similar work in other places, I could help facilitate a positive exchange of information between these people working to care for the ocean.

Ocean Culture Life is a platform that connects content creators with conservationists, so wherever creators are travelling in the world they can capture these local conservation stories — individuals and groups working on water safety, cleaning up beaches, teaching children about the ocean — and share them as widely as possible. 

It also helps the people working on these issues in their different corners of the world to feel less overwhelmed and alone. If someone is working on beach cleaning in the Philippines and can see someone else is also working on the same thing in Bali, they can share research and connect with each other a little bit better.

For me, this event was about bringing people together and allowing them to have useful conversations that can help them in their own lives. 

I was so excited to have ocean storytellers and ocean guardians from Bali attending to talk about the projects they are working on — how they are working, why they are working, and how more people can get involved. We’re also going to be running special events for children at the beach, encouraging them to get more involved with the ocean. 

The ocean conservation story in Bali is at an interesting point, and the situation can change very quickly. It’s obvious that there’s a lot more plastic in the ocean now than there was, but there are also people doing amazing work in Bali to prevent this, including projects that are stopping the movement of waste by halting it in the rivers. 

So I’m very positive about what can be achieved over the next few years. The ocean is resilient and small projects and actions can achieve big change quickly. 

Ultimately, the purpose of this gathering was to provide a space for people to connect, share ideas and speak openly together, and to be inspired to take positive action.

I was fortunate that I was around the ocean all the time from a young age, spending time in that shared community. If you’re around the ocean as a kid, you learn about ocean safety, about rip tides and currents, so you become a strong swimmer. If you hang out at the beach and go surfing with your friends, you get to enjoy this beautiful experience together. The earlier you can experience all this is a gift.

I started travelling in Bali when I was 20, and I’m always drawn back here. There’s a certain energy in Bali that you don’t get anywhere else in the world. I think of Bali as my second home, so I always wanted our first event outside Jersey to be held there. 

When I was in the Maldives and meeting the COMO team there, and learning about the COMO story, it just seemed like the perfect match. Ocean Culture Life is a community and a culture and that’s what I’ve discovered COMO is as well. 

People come back to COMO hotels and resorts not just for the beauty of the places but for the people. When you have that sense of welcome and community inside a business in the way that COMO does, that makes people feel positive, and that’s something that aligns with my core values.