Happy New Year everyone! 2014 marks the second year which I will be running the Virgin London Marathon again for my chosen charity, British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR).

2013 has been a successful fundraising year, as we broke our Justgiving target with your generous donations well in excess of £1000! On behalf of all at British Divers Marine Life Rescue, we would like to extend our sincere gratitude for those who have supported us. The funds were injected directly into the organisation for training, equipment and several BDMLR events to raise awareness of the organisation's efforts. This year, we hope to achieve the same amount of fundraising if not better, and with your support we can.

Since we last fundraised, my wife Cheryl and I have officially qualified as BDMLR's marine mammal medics, and have responded to several callouts. Also, we have helped out at BDMLR's 2013 Birmingham Dive Expo booth, raising funds and speaking with the public about the cause. With BDMLR's efforts, we have been able to reach out and rescue many stranded seals especially due to the bad weather last year. Although it's exciting to be called out to a rescue, it's equally heart-wrenching to witness helpless marine ceteceans being stranded on the beaches around Britain. Thus, our work must carry on to preserve Nature's precious lives so these animals stand a chance.

As we have been in the professional dive industry for several years, we are hugely passionate about campaigning for marine conservation; some successful campaigns include anti-shark fin movements in Asia, educating Indonesian and Fijian villages about marine conservation, and setting up a marine reserve on the Great Astrolabe Reef in Kadavu, Fiji. We first heard about British Divers Marine Life Rescue's work at the Birmingham dive expo a few years back, as well as seeing unfortunate news reports of stranded whales and dolphins around the UK coastlines.

Although it's not entirely clear why marine animals strand themselves or get into danger in shallow waters, we do know that we are the only ones who can give them a chance of survival. Without the work of BDMLR, this natural phenomenon would be widespread and would cause a huge negative impact to our oceans. The British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) is a voluntary network of trained marine mammal medics who respond to call outs from the general public, HM Coastguard, Police, RSPCA and SSPCA and are the only marine animal rescue organisation operating across England, Wales and Scotland. BDMLR deals with strandings of marine animals, oil spills, fishing gear entanglement and in fact any type of marine animal in trouble, e.g. whales, dolphins, sharks, seals, etc.

I will be undertaking the Virgin London Marathon 2014 on 13th April in hope that I would be able to raise a significant amount of funds for BDMLR. With your help, we can continue to support the work of BDMLR to rescue, release and rehabilitate marine wildlife. Your donations will go towards training more medics, buying rescue equipment like pontoons, handheld radios for medics to communicate effectively and blood testing kits that can be used by vets out on the beach. Every little helps, so if you're passionate about marine conservation like we are and believe in us, every contribution you make will be significant towards our cause.

Please take a look at my photo gallery below of strandings and BDMLR's work. For more information, please visit http://www.bdmlr.org.uk/

Thank you so much for your kind generosity!!