Very lucky to have stopped in KK: Race for Water crew

Kota Kinabalu: Race for Water crew consider themselves ”very lucky” to have stopped over in Kota Kinabalu which was originally excluded from their 5-year odyssey around the globe, said Captain Francois Martin before leaving here yesterday after a 23-day stopover since August 19.

Out of the 20 stopovers since he left France on April 9 2017, Kota Kinabalu is “one of my favourites”, said Captain Martin who is in charge of the 100-tonne all-renewable energy powered Race for Water catamaran which departed for Palawan at 2.30pm, Tuesday, after spending 23 days here.

“We had three very, very best and productive weeks because we met a lot of officials, a lot of politicians and I hope it is going to be better off for you guys to get rid of all those plastic wastes, then we had 1,300 kids and students from university. So I guess we have spread the message about the plastic problem,” he told Daily Express before sailing off.

The extraordinary catamaran, powered by a portfolio of clean energy comprising solar, wind and hydrogen power, visited Madeira, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, Guadaloupe, Panama, Peru, Chile, Robinson Island, Easter Island, French Polynesia, Samoan Islands, Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanatu, Solomon Island, Bali and Jakarta before arriving in Kota Kinabalu on 19 August , a day earlier than planed.

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Marinah Harris Embiricos – the mastermind behind the visit to Kota Kinabalu, said: “I am happy, I don’t feel disappointed, I think we have done a great job, I think the media have done a great job, and you (Daily Express as official media) have done a fantatstic job in covering this and thank you very much.

“Let’s join forces to learn, share and act to do something about the plastic pollution in the oceans.” As founder of local NGO NOW ( No More Plastics in Our Waters) , Marinah said she did all it took to give Race for Water her understanding and support.

“I am sure they have been disappointed in some places because they have come up with such an innovative vessel that acts as an ambassador to inspire people.

They have brought in their team, they have made all their efforts, done the research and the continuously doing that.

“The most important thing is their sharing to over 1,400 students from aged 8 above , the sciences, intellectuals who are extremely happy with the outcome. Personally I think the opportunity we in NOW as local host, our awareness campaign in driving home the danger of plastics as has hit home to some of these groups as well as the children who are big learners and we hope they will spread it and I am sure if everybody contributes from here forwards we can see the change.”

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“We are doing now is we have given questionaires to all the local authorities, municipalities and asked them to tell us their problems, what is their population, what is their growth, what are their projections on wastes and .

“We are compiling it and I understand that Deputy State Secretary, DBKK will continue to work with them to find out who will lead this project so that we will have a genuine data where we can can analyse and where and how we can approach a solution and what’s the pilot project,” Marinah said.

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