Ladies Night -
Allan R. Smith - Adventure with Purpose Screening of the Award Winning film “Dusty’s Trail: Summit of Borneo”
Andy Fink, Chuck Jonkey & Allan R. Smith
Adventurers’ Club member and past-president Allan Smith is an award winning filmmaker that has traveled the globe
in search of adventure and discovery in front of the camera.
For his latest film, he recruited fellow member Chuck Jonkey to accompany him to the jungles of Boreno and the summit of Mt. Kinabalu.
Armed with a plane full of camera gear, the team along with videographer &
editor Andy Fink headed to Borneo where they met up with Coalition Duchenne founder and Newport Beach mother of Dusty Brandon.
Dusty who suffers from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is confined to a wheel chair and his mother Catherine Jayasuriya had an idea.
To bring a film crew with her on her quest to raise awareness to this debilitating disease as
she recruits people from all over the world to come together in Borneo to raise awareness for Duchenne and
climb the highest mountain in South East Asia.
Little did Allan and the crew know what a life changing experience this would be.
We filmed over 60 people from 14 countries that came together to climb a mountain for a cause.
And if that was not enough, we went searching through Borneo, looking for other children that may be afflicted with Duchenne and
it is amazing that we found “Azmi” a small child living in a village.
He lives and crawls on the floor and he is featured in the film, said Allan.
Dusty's Trail: Summit Of Borneo is an inspirational documentary about a young man's journey with Duchenne muscular dystrophy,
a fatal and debilitating muscle wasting condition that affects one in 3,500 boys worldwide.
The story tells about people coming together from around the world to climb a mountain in Borneo for charity to raise awareness for Duchenne.
Dusty's Trail: Summit Of Borneo celebrates life through ties that bind all humanity.
It's about the power of creating a positive, happy, fulfilling and inspiring life when the odds seem against it.
Filmed in Borneo and California, the documentary is based on interviews with doctors, researchers, parents, friends and
people who have been inspired by Dusty's life, some with whom he has never met, and others who share the same path.
The film has won awards around the World and been nominated for “Best Documentary Film”, Best Foreign Film”, “Best Editing”.
Director: Catherine Jayasuriya
Produced by: Allan R. Smith & Catherine Jayasuria
Sound, Camera: Chuck Jonkey
Editor, Camera: Andrew Fink
Ladies Night -
David Finnern - The Graveyard of the Pacific
David Finnern (Click on Image to View Complete Photo)
David Finnern has spent over 35 years searching for shipwrecks and submerged ruins.
As an award-winning writer, he has published hundreds of stories on underwater exploration in numerous magazines and newspapers,
and has written on-assignment for such magazines as
Skin Diver, Western and Eastern Treasures, Wreck Diver, Underwater USA, Western Diver and Immersed.
Finnern is the author of several books, including The Sport Divers’ Guide to Sunken Treasure,
Passage Through Deep Waters and Lost Below: The Southwest’s Most Intriguing Shipwrecks, Sunken Aircraft, Submerged Ruins and Undersea Treasures.
He has been a featured speaker at various functions throughout the United States and has appeared as
a guest and on-air technical consultant on national and international television.
He is a member and former president of both The Adventurers’ Club and California Wreck Divers, Inc., and
was elected a Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society in 2002.
Linda Finnern (Click on Image to View Complete Photo)
Last year, David and Pete "Squidlips" Matthews traveled to the Idaho/Canadian border area to
search for several unknown shipwrecks and explore several known wrecks including a remote sunken train and an ancient Indian canoe.
As a continuation of that trip David and his wife Linda traveled to the Columbia River Bar region,
known as the "Graveyard of the Pacific," last April to explore the beaches and coves and chase down some of
the incredible stories of the over 2,000 shipwrecks on the beaches and just offshore Oregon and Washington.
The Columbia River mouth is particularly treacherous as there is no delta, creating a "firehose" effect.
The outgoing current meeting formidable Pacific storms create massive 40' waves,
twisting ships sideways and engulfing them in torrential white water.
Often, before modern navigation devices, ships would literally be thrown onto nearby beaches and rocks.
Over 700 seamen have been sent to watery graves in the immediate area.
Join us on July 25th in a joint meeting with California Wreck Divers to explore some of the stories and tales of "The Graveyard of the Pacific."
Dusty's Trail: Summit of Borneo
