If you want to help
You can pledge online at www.save-georgias-coast.org/kayaking-for-the-georgia-coast.html, or write a check payable to Savannah Riverkeeper or Allen Bradley at P.O. Box 14908, Augusta, GA 30919. Mark your contribution for Kayaking for the Georgia Coast.
Four friends, connected by a love of adventure, are kayaking 100 miles along the coast to raise money to help aid efforts to save the environment.
The trip started out as a guys’ outing for Allen Bradley, James Marlow, Phillip Hodges and Doug Pettersen. Soon, however, it turned into a mini-mission. The group launched from Hilton Head, S.C., on Friday and will journey along the Georgia coast, then finish around Amelia Island, Fla., on Nov. 18. They will camp along the way.
“It’s part of giving back, recognizing how much I’ve enjoyed it (the coast) over the years and making it available to others,” said Bradley, a member of the law firm of Stites & Harbison. He said the men hope to raise $15,000 for Save Georgia’s Coast, a group consisting of eight nonprofit conservation organizations working to raise awareness about the fragility of the coastal wetlands and saltwater marshes and how they can be protected.
So far, Bradley and his friends have raised or have pledges for about $10,000.
All the men are experienced paddlers and avid outdoorsmen. Pettersen, for example, a technical consultant for a company that provides broadcast equipment for sporting events worldwide, is an experienced guide for rock climbing and mountaineering expeditions. Marlow, the CEO of Radiance Solar, an Atlanta solar systems installation company, and Bradley have canoed extensively in Canada and elsewhere. Hodges, audit partner in the Ernst & Young Atlanta office, cut his teeth on the Upper Chattahoochee and Chattooga rivers and at 17 hiked the Appalachian Trail from end to end.
“This will be a new adventure for us,” Marlow said of the trip aboard four 17- to 20-foot sea kayaks. “It’s more of an expedition. We started out to have fun and experience the Georgia coast in a new way.”
Marlow also serves on the boards of several environmental groups. “My No. 1 concern is development,” he said. “We only get one chance to mess up the Georgia coast. Once an area is overdeveloped, we really don’t get a chance to do a do-over. I have four sons, and I would like them to grow up enjoying and experiencing the coast the same way I did as a boy.”
Georgia’s saltwater marshes and freshwater wetland, which provide a habitat to some of the area’s most valuable wildlife, have been major areas of concern for conservationists. Nearly 70 percent of the species that are fished off the coast of Georgia spend time in the saltwater marshes. The coast is also a major flyway for migratory birds.
One of the major issues is unplanned development, said Bill Sapp, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“No one is totally against development. We just want to see that it is done wisely and carefully,” he said. “The endgame is to preserve those characteristics of the coast that make it so special.”
Another concern is water quality, which involves everything from pollution to adequate fresh water reaching the coast, said Deborah Sheppard, executive director of Altamaha Riverkeeper and a member of Save Georgia’s Coast.
She hopes the kayakers will get more people to think about what they can do to protect the coastal area.
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