Geoff was born in Harare, Zimbabwe and studied at the University of Witwatersrand. Due to Retinitis Pigmentosa – a retinal deteriorative disease – Geoff was totally blind by the age of 40. For his service to the community, he was awarded the Rotary International Paul Harris award.
Geoff has always enjoyed his sport, such as horse riding, and maintains that it has enabled him more than anything else to cope with his loss of sight. Through participation in various sports, he has learned to break barriers which would otherwise have kept him from living a normal life.
Apart from his life achievement, crossing the Indian Ocean single-handed in his own yacht from Durban to Perth in 1997, a 51 day voyage, Geoff has participated in a number of extreme sport adventures.
Conquering the Indian Ocean blind and completely single-handedly is only the beginning of the adventure.
He has run the New York Marathon ten times and has his green number for the Comrades Marathon;
While partially sighted, Geoff was a sport parachutist, with 430 jumps and the South African night altitude record to his credit.
He represented South Africa twice as a blind track athlete at international events in England and Israel.
He took up sailing in 1975 and, with a yacht that he himself completed from “hull and deck” stage, participated in off-shore racing and cruising along the South African coast. He has also completed an ocean crossing from Rio de Janeiro to Cape town.
He has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro three times and completed seven 250 km desert marathons in the Sahara and Kalahari deserts.
In 2005, he became the first South African to complete the non-stop 218 km “Bad Water” Ultra Marathon race through Death Valley, California. Geoff was awarded the prestigious “buckle” for completing the distance in under 48 hours.
Professionally, Geoff has dedicated
his life to welfare organizations.
