Born in Sydney, he grew up in the suburbs but was fortunate enough to have spent school holidays running around in boats on the northern coast of New South Wales.

Amidst the chaos and clutter of Sydney University life in the seventies he actually managed to acquire a degree - principally because most of his undergraduate life was spent on a beach. Half way through writing the final draft of his thesis on sea level change and global warming, he decided that running a sail boat and dive operation in the South Pacific would be safer, and probably a whole lot more fun, than a career as an academic.

A yachtie lifestyle was ideally suited to working as and freelance photojournalist, and he went on to work as a staff writer and correspondent for several magazines. One thing led to another, and over the years he became involved in adventure tourism, and promoting tourism in general to Vanuatu.