Introducing ASI SUP Instructor, Mark Bailey, Bowen North Queensland Australia

AUSTRALIA, Qld.  Hi I’m Mark Bailey, President of North Queensland’  first stand up paddle board club, in Bowen, heart of the Whitsundays.  It’s a 13 hour drive north of Brisbane.
 
I began my love affair with the ocean in the mid 70’s, as a surf grommet on the New South Wales, Tweed Coast.
 
During the 80’s I surfed with Cabarita Boardriders, after which I moved to the Goldy for work. I made the transition to SUP a decade later, due to work related injuries, before relocating to Bowen in 2014 and establishing the Bowen SUP Club.
 
Bowen offers the perfect conditions, for flat water ocean paddling. Becoming an ASI SUP instructor was a natural progression to introduce and inspire, a new audience of young and old to paddling.
 
With a passion for the sport, seeing people challenge themselves and step out of their comfort zone is contagious. An ocean lifestyle creates unique health and wellbeing benefits, a recharge that only connecting with nature can create.
 
Bowens spectacular natural beauty, with its multitude of nearby offshore Islands & numerous bays & beaches, is an unexplored Paddlers Paradise.
 
with environmental sustainability a 21st century concern, my aim is to follow gold coast’s lead, with their introduction of surfing into the school sport curriculum. incorporating sup into an ocean care subject, within the local (initially) school curriculum, would educate children in ocean health & science.
 
Amongst my many SUP experiences, a highlight adventure was August 2017 during whale season. Paddling a few kilometres offshore, I was met by a family of humpbacks. For nearly an hour these majestic giants floated around me, before taking a parting pass, close beneath my board & diving away into the depths.

That’s my story...
Peace out dudes!
😄👍
 




 
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