Ben Southall won the ‘Best job in the World’ as caretaker of Hamilton Island off the Australian coast. His contract’s up, so what’s next for the adventurer?
In 2009, British charity worker Ben Southall beat off 34,000 hopefuls to land ‘the best job in the world’, a £75,000 contract from Tourism Queensland as caretaker of Australia’s idyllic Hamilton Island. After a whirlwind year promoting the island and blogging about his experiences – which included being stung by a potentially fatal irukandji jellyfish – he’s now about to embark on the ‘Best Expedition in the World’, a 1,600km kayak journey along the Great Barrier Reef.
Dan Linstead: So the best job in the world is now over. What’s your official job title these days?
Ben Southall: My business cards say 'Queensland tourism ambassador' but the bulk of my work is still running the website, islandreefjob.com, working to document different experiences within Queensland.
The main focus recently has been damage limitation after the Queensland floods [in January 2011]. We're trying to get people to realise that Queensland is not shut, or underwater. And then there is the logistics and management for the 'best expedition in the world', which is the bulk of our work at the moment.
DL: What’s the idea behind the expedition?
BS: Since winning 'best job in the world' I haven’t done anything for charity, so I wanted to do something that would be beneficial for the Reef. Ocean temperatures are rising and coral reefs are dying: that is a major concern for people around the world. The Great Barrier Reef is the best of the lot, so how do we look after it and protect it?
My expedition is to kayak along the inner reef, visiting different locations and dive sites that people might not normally go to. We will film and photograph underwater, to produce a 360 degree view of the Reef, and then host that on our website. The outcome will be similar to Google Street View, but we’re taking that concept underwater. There will be position updates every 15 minutes using trackers on the kayaks, and daily blogs, video and photo uploads. We'll get people virtually swimming through the Reef on their computers. Hopefully, it will help to stimulate their interest in the Reef and encourage them to get out there and do it themselves. We’ll have a fun adventure, but we will make it a worthwhile expedition as well, with a legacy of valuable conservation information.
DL: How much of the reef have you seen already, from your ‘best job’ experiences?
BS: I've dived about 50 times since I began the ‘best job in the world’, but only in about 15 locations. The Reef is over 2,000km long, and those areas make up less than 0.5% of it, so I’ve hardly seen any of it.
DL: How physically strenuous is your expedition going to be?
BS: There are three ways to power the kayak: paddle, pedal and sail. When we can, we’ll be sailing, as obviously that’s the least strenuous. This is not about setting an endurance record, it's about visiting locations, diving and finding out about life underwater and making it an inspirational experience.
If it was going to be 12-hour paddle everyday, people viewing the website would be bored after two weeks. It would just be me complaining about my shoulders hurting in a large expanse of water!
DL: So you’re looking to stop somewhere everyday rather than have one long continuous journey?
BS: Within the first seven days (we leave on 21 May, the day of the Captain Cook festival) we'll have the biggest paddle of our expedition. Eighty-five kilometres on the open ocean, to get to Lady Elliot Island. There’s a research station there and some of the finest coral on the whole of the Great Barrier Reef. We’ll spend four days there, getting stories from the people living there, constructing and presenting interesting information about the Reef.
DL: Are the islands actually part of the reef system or are they on either side of it?
BS: As you travel towards the Queensland coastline from the open ocean, the first thing you hit is the outer reef, which is where the continental shelf edges. This is just strips of ribbon reef, which is there to protect the inner reef.
As you come further inshore you then start to see more islands, formed by the Reef having sand blown onto it over long periods of time. The sand then builds up, along with bird excrement, plants grow and eventually it forms an island.
These islands are dotted all the way up the Great Barrier Reef. The most southerly point is about 100km from the main coastline, but as you travel further to the north it’s only about 10km from the shore.
DL: How many of the islands are inhabited?
BS: Indigenous history is an enormous part of the history of the Great Barrier Reef. About 50 of the islands have some form of habitation. For example, Hamilton Island has 1,500 inhabitants and other islands just have one person who’s a caretaker with an outpost. On a few islands we'll visit, we’ll get to interact with people living there; from the indigenous communities on the Palm Islands, to the islands with research stations like One Tree Island.
DL: Tourism plays a major role in some of these areas, but the reefs also need protection. How do we maintain a healthy balance?
BS: I have seen damage from diver’s fins on the Reef, and it’s never good to see coral damaged in anyway, shape or form, but the vast majority of tourism is in small areas and you’ve got to consider vast the Reef is. The fact that people can go there and learn about how environmentally sensitive the Reef is, means they return home as ambassadors, with their own message.
We're also working with marine conservation charity Reefcheck, to produce a snapshot of the Reef to use after we've finished. Reefcheck will be establishing an EcoAction programme, which will allow tourists to go out onto the Reef and do their own data collection. They can travel to the Reef on a set day of the year, pay $10, go underwater and record what they see themselves – and that will be recorded on a database.
DL: If you were going to give the Reef a health assessment what would your conclusion be, in comparison to other reefs around the world?
BS: Although the worldwide state of coral reefs is worrying, the current condition of the Great Barrier Reef is pretty good.
Ocean temperatures are rising: coral needs a certain temperature range in order to survive. Naturally what will happen is that as ocean temperatures continue to rise, equatorial reefs will slowly begin to die.
The Great Barrier Reef is fairly far south, but what it does mean, funnily enough, is that as temperatures start to rise this creates new conditions where coral can grow. Soft coral grows pretty quickly. You could throw a mooring from a boat onto the coral and damage it; six months later soft coral will be growing there. This means that the Great Barrier Reef may start to slowly morph south, as the conditions there get better.
In places like Moreton Bay, which is just off Brisbane about 300km south of the nearest part of the Great Barrier Reef, soft coral grows and now hard coral is beginning to grow too. The reef is moving and changing – it is a living organism after all.
DL: The authorities in Queensland have been asking travellers to return after the devastating floods earlier this year. What was the situation like on the ground?
BS: I don’t think there are many other countries in the world that would have responded in such a neighbourly way or quite as openly and honest with the rest of the world.
The day after the floods 80,000 people volunteered to get out on the streets to help people they didn’t even know. Where I live there were 200 people walking around with brooms, shovels and mops, clearing out people’s houses, and just generally helping them out.
It was a really emotional thing to see how open people were. We all thought, ‘We’ve been hit by something major here, how are we going to get ourselves out of it?’ And I think that’s what pulled everyone through – the whole community side of things.
That was just on a national level. To go out to the international community and say ‘Queensland is open for business’ was brave. It was open four days after the floods. RiverLife, a tourism operator that operates on the Brisbane River, was under 2.5m of water. They cleared up on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday and were open again for business on the Monday. This only happened because 60 people they didn’t even know came along and volunteered to help out and clean up.
I think you would struggle to get that selflessness and kindness in England. I think people would be worried about stealing, about crime, about being responsible, while just standing back and not offering a hand. In Queensland it was a beautiful thing to see.
DL: You’re no stranger to waterborne perils – tell us about your jellyfish attack.
BS: I was stung by the irukandji jellyfish in Queensland; they're the size of a fingernail and translucent. In all that ocean, you don't stand a chance in hell of seeing one in choppy water. It was my choice not to wear a stinger suit. There are maybe 6-10 incidents per year in Queensland. You see warnings on the beaches and the life guards know what to do. I’d been on a jet ski; I was just coming onto the beach and splashed my face with some water – the jelly was in that water, and it stung me on the forearm.
At the time it was like someone pulling a hair from your arm – that's it – but 20 minutes later the irukandji syndrome kicks in – it's like a vice being tightened around your kidneys and liver. You get headaches, you start to vomit, and you convulse. 25 minutes after the sting I knew what was going on. 10 minutes after that the sweats started. I went to the medical centre, got 3 injections and spent 8 hours in bed. But the next day I went out for a 10km run; back on track again!
DL: Could it have been fatal?
BS: If you're an unhealthy person who suffers from high blood pressure and cardiac problems your heart would certainly suffer. And if you couldn’t get to a medical centre quickly, yes, you’d have a problem.
DL: What have been your most enjoyable wildlife encounters on the Reef?
BS: I came pretty close to some whales when I was on a 15ft catamaran – it was probably one of the most brilliant, rushing experiences ever. It was awesome. So I'm hoping for some close encounters like that on the expedition. I’d like to see some humpback whales – you're not allowed to approach them but I want them to be close to me. I'd love to film it. You can't plan or predict those kinds of moments.
I've had some good interactions with turtles and dolphins, and I'd love to see some sharks. The experiences that scare you are the ones that make you feel alive.
In May 2011 Ben will set off on a 1600km expedition along the Great Barrier Reef. Paddling from the Town of 1770 all the way north to Cooktown, his route will retrace that taken by the original English adventurer and seafarer Captain James Cook who navigated and charted the waters of the Coral Sea back in 1770. Follow his journey at www.islandreefjob.com
