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Coast 2 Coast 4 Cancer gets underway

Today 5 KZN chaps will climb on their jet skis in Ponta Do Oura in Mozambique to make their way around the coast of Africa, to the West coast of Namibia. These courageous guys, Barry Lewin, Jason Ribbink ex-Protea cricketer Lance Klusener, Mark Addison and former Dolphins cricketer Russel Symcox (ScottburghCoast will be doing this all for for an intitivate called Coast 2 Coast 4 Cancer for the CANSA foundation to raise awareness & funds for them.


I have been following a couple of the guys on Twitter of the last couple of months, and they have put in loads of hours of training for this epic journey.Below is a press release for the journey.

In mid-April this year, five intrepid adventurers on jet ski’s will travel over 2800km’s of coastline in 3 Southern African countries in order to increase awareness and raise funds for the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA) as part of the Coast 2 Coast 4 CANSA (C2C4C) campaign supported by SPAR and Acer.

The expedition, which is expected to last for up to four weeks, requires the pilots to be in peak physical and mental condition as they will be encountering extreme ocean conditions on almost every step of their epic journey.

The pilots, SA surfski paddler Barry Lewin (Umhlanga), SA surfer Jason Ribbink (Durban North), ex-Protea cricketer Lance Klusener (Mount Edgecombe), marine conservationist Mark Addison (Widenham) and former Dolphins cricketer Russel Symcox (Scottburgh), will begin their journey on their Yamaha WaveRunners on the Mozambique border on the 20 April in 2010. Over the next four weeks, man and machine will travel up to 300km each day, with the aim of creating awareness, educating and raising funds for CANSA.

“CANSA plays an important ‘watchdog’ role for South Africans by acting proactively and educating the public on protecting themselves against cancer and this inaugural event will help to spread the word about making informed choices, such as safety in the sun, not using any tobacco products and encouraging South Africans to eat five fresh fruits and vegetables every day. Up to 40% of cancers can be prevented by living a healthy, balanced lifestyle. We are very excited to be joining the expedition in the fight against cancer”, says Sue Janse van Rensburg, CANSA’s CEO.

The journey, which will begin on the East Coast border of Mozambique and end at the West Coast border of Namibia, is “inherently dangerous, physically gruelling and challenging on every level” said expedition leader and event organiser Russel Symcox. However, according to Symcox, a mission of this magnitude is justifiable as “it will attract the necessary media attention which in turn will provide a platform to raise funds and create awareness for cancer, its prevention, early detection and treatment as well as encouraging all South Africans to pursue a healthy balanced lifestyle”.

The approximately 1511 nautical mile journey involves more than just the five-strong “core” jet ski crew, as they will be accompanied by four support vehicles manned by support crew members, medical and safety personnel, media liaisons and logistics co-ordinators.

During the treacherous journey, the crew will stop over in the major South African cities of Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, and make use of the opportunity to promote cancer awareness. On these particular stop over days, media interviews with local radio stations and regional or community newspapers will be facilitated through the media liaisons and, with the assistance of CANSA, educational visits to schools, hospitals, clinics and special care facilities will also be organised, all designed to promote awareness about cancer and draw attention to the objectives of the C2C4C campaign.

For more information, to donate or simply just to track the progress of the crew both in the build-up and throughout the C2C4C campaign, log on to the official website at www.coast2coast4cansa.co.za or on the CANSA website www.cansa.org.za to get the latest updates, news, pictures and videos.

As part of their fundraising drive, a SMS line has been opened, and by SMSing C2C4C or DONATE to the number 38501, you can make a donation of R10 to the Coast 2 Coast 4 CANSA campaign.

Once the mission has begun, the SMS donation line will also have a unique tracking application whereby people will be able to SMS “TRACK” to 38501, and a map and co-ordinates will be sent to the user which will show where exactly the jet ski crew are.

Expedition Leader Symcox was also very excited that “the C2C4C Facebook group and Twitter pages are getting good support, and we’d like to urge everyone to assist us in growing the group and broadening the reach to many more.”

Coast 2 Coast 4 CANSA would not be possible without SPAR and IT partner Acer. Yamaha has provided the FX Waverunners with RMR providing trailers and Thekwini Toyota sponsoring a Quantum bus and Hilux vehicles for the back-up crew.

Lowrance has provided safety and navigation equipment and RE/MAX as well as Rainbow Chickens have contributed financially to assist with the expedition expenses. Riders will be wearing Billabong wetsuits, Oakley eyewear, Oakley H2O goggles, Dakine and Xcel lifejackets and hard goods. The entire expedition will be documented via Sanyo digital video camera’s supplied by Hirsch.

360X provided the branding for the skis and vehicles; Corporate Junction has sponsored the C2C4C branding. The team is grateful to Racetech Yamaha for servicing the skis and assisting with modifications. The entire expedition will be insured by Curnow Garrun Insurance Brokers and Alexander’s Incorporated will be taking care of all legal matters.

Med-Evac and their associated partners will be providing emergency medical rescue if necessary and Power Balance is supplying lifestyle armbands and Vitamin Water is the beverage sponsor. All website and design work has been created by Apula Advertising. Southern Sun is the accommodation partner and Suncoast Casino and Entertainment World has sponsored the launch function and closing function. Cellfind have supplied the sms lines with Nivea providing sunscreen protection for the riders for the duration of the trip.

The C2C4C team are proud to be associated with the South African Rugby Legends Association (SARLA) who will be staging sports clinics on the beach at various stop-overs.

I will try and do a couple more posts about the journey, and wish the guys the best of luck.

[Images courtesy of Kevin Trautman]

3 replies on “Coast 2 Coast 4 Cancer gets underway”

Instead of smsing “Donate” you can also sms one of these keywords to get a approximate location of where they are.
RUS
MARK
BARRY
JASON
GROUND
SUPPORT

Please not all sms’s to this number donate R10 to C2C4Cansa

Hello there, I couldn’t see a means to contact you, and so I really hope that you see this comment. I have a website about ladies wetsuits, and wondered if you might like to swap links with me. I have entered my contact address in case you would like to get in touch. Thanks.

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