A seeker of wild places and blue water, Belinda ‘Bindy’ Baggs’ heart has always been set in the ocean. A passionate all-around surfer, she’s perhaps best known for her graceful and technically accomplished longboard style. Bindy has a wandering spirit, but her roots are planted on the coast of Australia. “Time in the ocean,” she says, “is like returning home”. Mother to a 8-year-old boy, she has a strong passion for environmental protection and preservation of all living things for the future generations. Belinda believes that living an examined everyday life is one easily attainable way forward to positive change in the current environmental crisis.
Born in Newcastle and now residing on Victoria’s Surf Coast, Bindy’s career highlights include becoming the Australian Professional Longboard Circuit Champion in 2000, and placing third in the Women’s World Longboard Championship in Costa Rica that same year. She was the first female surfer to grace the cover of ‘Surfers Journal’ and has featured in a number of surf films, including ‘Sprout’ (2003), ‘Dear and Yonder’ (2012), ‘Come Hell or High Water’ (2016), and ‘Never Town’ (2018). She has both produced and featured in recent environmental documentaries ‘South Fish’ (2019) and ‘The Reef Beneath’ (2018).
A Patagonia Surf Ambassador, as well as an ambassador for Take 3 for the Sea, late last year Bindy visited the Heron Island Research Station on the Great Barrier Reef as a guest of The Climate Council. Following this formative trip, she co-founded the not-for-profit group Surfers for Climate.