Positive thinking works – Greg’s epic journey shows where his heart is

who could do big things. It was a message poignant to him on a personal level, after his own journey.

His first port of call was to sail his ‘Little Optimist’ – which is not really meant for open ocean sailing – up the West Coast. “The whole mission in the boat was because I want to show the kids that anything is possible. Here’s a boat built for sailing inland that tackles the mighty ocean.”

With some financial assistance from Warwick Wealth – the CEO was so taken by a talk Greg did they came on board as a sponsor – he embarked on his journey last year, sailing more than 200km and raising funds for the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.

Part of the plan was to write a children’s book called The Little Optimist, and now a documentary movie is on the cards after a dad at his school offered his filmmaking services.

Written by Greg and wonderfully illustrated by another keen surfer Chip Snaddon, the story brims with adventure and life lessons about optimism and never giving up.

Join Greg on Wednesday at 6pm at the Two Oceans Aquarium to launch the book in support of SharkSpotters, and to hear about the little optimist. The African office of the World Surf League has called for donations of water for the Vans Surf Pro Classic next weekend due to the severe drought in the Lamberts Bay area. Operations Manager Colin Fitch says the Clanwilliam dam is at six percent (the lowest in its known record) and water officials had warned the water was “slowly turning undrinkable”. If you’re going up for the contest, take plenty of bottled water. The Tigers Milk Classic looks set to become one of the must-do events on the surfing calendar. It’s turning into a proper festival of surfing with a number of WSL and SAST Specialty divisions, and a host of Longboarding, surfing and SUP divisions. It takes place over the weekend of 10 June. Today a frontal SW to W onshore breeze blows on the west side while a small 2’ swell builds quickly from midday to 4-6’ sets by nightfall, although slow to pulse. Muizenberg looks 2’ becoming 3’ in mild sideshore offshore. Tomorrow looks 4-6’ in light to glassy southerly. A moderate S to SE breeze puffs. Muizenberg looks 2-3’ early in clean seas, puffing mild onshore