Meet Dave

Dave Cornthwaite started having adventures in 2005, when he decided that his new skateboard was just about the only reason he needed to leave the day job.

Since then, Dave has made a living out of saying yes to doing the things he once would have said no to. After setting up the distance longboarding initiative, BoardFree, he became the the first person to skate the length of Britain. Sadly, for his blistered feet, that was just a warm-up for an enormous skate across Australia, where he skated from Perth to Brisbane and broke the world record for the longest distance ever skated. He'd only taken up the sport 22 months earlier, and the scent of adventure and the enjoyment of pushing boundaries led to a new sport, Aquaskipping.

After he became the fastest Briton to ever ride an Aquaskipper - which wasn't entirely hard, because he was probably the first Briton to ride one in the first place - he did some other adventurous projects like attempting to date 100 women in 100 days.

In 2009 Dave established The Great Big Paddle with the aim of sharing a passion for combining sport, travel and an active awareness of the environments through which he passes. A series of big and small paddling journeys and several thousand miles of paddling await, all in aid of a wonderful charity, the AV Foundation.

Between October and December 2009 Dave paddled the length of Australia's largest river, the Murray, documenting his investigation into an environmental controversy that sees the once mighty Murray fail to reach the sea.

In April 2010 Dave turned his hand to Stand Up Paddling, joining Seb Terry on the first crossing of Lake Geneva. A month later Dave and another adventurous friend, Sarah Outen, completed the longest Stand Up Paddleboard journey seen in the UK, a 150 mile paddle between Bath and London.

To date, Dave has helped to raise over £300,000 for various charities and his experience in design, marketing and expedition planning recently led him to establish DreamChase, a multi-faceted organisation dedicated to helping people think out of the box and achieve their own dreams.

At present he self funds his projects with some hard graft in between expeditions, along with help from book sales, public lectures and sponsors. Most importantly, he wakes up each morning with a big smile on his chops, because he quite enjoys doing what he loves every day. Find out more about Dave on his websiteBuy Dave's first book on Amazon
See some media coverage about Dave's projects
Who is Dave? The Guardian newspaper didn't know either. Funny article here