Latest News
Here's our latest press releases from Bruny Island Cruises and Tasman Island Cruises.
Support for the Tasmanian Coast Conservation Fund reaches $100,000
Tasmania's multi-award winning ecocruising business Pennicott Wilderness Journeys recently announced a donation of an additional $35,000 to the Tasmanian Coast Conservation Fund, which is managed by Wildcare for important Tasmanian Parks & Wildlife conservation projects. This latest donation brings Pennicott Wilderness Journeys' sponsorship of the Fund to a grand total of $100,000, since Rob Pennicott established it in 2008.
To date, the money has been used for the cat eradication program on Tasman Island, where feral cats have been decimating the island's ground nesting seabirds. This program is due to be completed in May-June this year, ending the environmental destruction caused by generations of feral cats – the descendants of lighthouse keepers' pets – on populations of fairy prions and short-tailed shearwaters.
The Tasman Island project is the first ever cat eradication program undertaken on a near-offshore Tasmanian island. It involves aerial baiting using a humane toxin, which kills the feral cats quickly but without distress, in a manner similar to carbon monoxide poisoning. The baiting will be followed by active hunting of any surviving cats. Remote cameras and other technology will be used to continue surveillance of the island for another one to two years.
Tasman Island Restoration Project
A project to restore the natural values of Tasman Island will begin next week with an aerial baiting program to eradicate cats from the island.
The project, costing approximately $100,000, is a cooperative effort between WILDCARE Inc through the Tasmanian Coast Conservation Fund, the Parks and Wildlife Service and the Resource Management and Conservation Division of the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment.
Eco-cruising pioneer Rob Pennicott, who established the Tasmanian Coast Conservation Fund, said that he and his staff at Bruny & Tasman Island Cruises are proud to be strong supporters of the cat eradication project.
"Every time our cruises pass beneath the spectacular sea crags of Tasman, it's great to be able to explain to our local, interstate and international guests that the funds we donate are helping Tasmania's Parks and Wildlife Service to complete this important task," he said.
"Each year, we're privileged to show tens of thousands of visitors the magnificent coastlines of south-east Tasmania. Our continuing support of the Tasmanian Coast Conservation Fund further strengthens our commitment to preserving this precious coastal environment for the future."
Bruny Island Cruises wins Australian Tourism Award
Tasmanian eco-cruising pioneer Rob Pennicott and his team continue to win major awards on the national stage – at tonight's Australian Tourism Awards at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Hobart, Rob's Bruny Island Cruises won the Australian Ecotourism category for 2009.
After sweeping success in the Tasmanian awards leading up to the Australian finals, Bruny Island Cruises had the unusual opportunity to win national awards three different categories - Tourist Attraction, Ecotourism and the Qantas Award for Excellence in Sustainable Tourism.
"It's a huge thrill to get national recognition like this, and a wonderful acknowledgment of all the people who work so hard to make our business a success," Rob Pennicott says.
"Since we started back in 1999, it's been a total team effort, all the way – without our skippers, bus drivers, catering staff, deckhands, finance, marketing and promotion staff – not to mention all our partners and business colleagues in the Tasmanian tourism industry – none of these awards would ever be won."
Bruny Island Cruises began when Rob, a professional fisherman, realised that the spectacular coastline where he made his living was a secret that most people never discovered.
"I used to take friends and visitors to Tassie along the South Bruny coast and it blew them away," Rob says. "So I started the eco-cruising business to share the wonders of the region. In our first season we carried just a few hundred people – last year we took more than 26,000 guests to see pods of dolphins, fur seals, migrating whales, sea eagles, albatrosses, deep sea caves and huge sea cliffs."
New Pennicott Wilderness Journeys office opens on Hobart's waterfront
Today Michelle O'Byrne MP, Minister for Tourism and the Arts, officially opened Pennicott Wilderness Journeys' new Hobart Waterfront office.
Tasmania's eco-cruising pioneer Robert Pennicott's new Hobart base and booking office is located in the Dock Head Building within the heart of Hobart's maritime precinct, at the entrance to Constitution Dock (previously the site of CH Smith Marine).
The new office creates a high-profile capital-city presence to showcase Rob's two multi-award winning products, Bruny Island Cruises and Tasman Island Cruises. These spectacular 3 hour coastal wilderness cruises which travel along two key Tasmanian coastal locations, Bruny Island and Port Arthur, have become some of Tasmania's most desired experiences.
The new waterfront office for Pennicott Wilderness Journeys represents an additional investment of $400,000 and adds three new employees to the business, taking the total number of staff to 45 Tasmanians.
"We've invested heavily in Tasmanian tourism enterprises and we're proud to be able to provide significant employment for local people, with all the flow-on benefits that brings for the communities of Bruny Island and the Tasman Peninsula, the places where we operate" Rob says.
Triple Treat for Rob Pennicott's Team
Bruny Island Cruises wins all three of its categories entered in the 2009 Tasmanian Tourism Awards
The wins keep coming for Tasmanian eco-cruising pioneer Rob Pennicott and his team at Bruny Island Cruises. Already an icon among Tasmanian visitor experiences, the cruise along the remote and spectacular coastline of South Bruny Island won all three categories entered in the 2009 Tasmanian Tourism Awards.
"We were very excited to be named Best Tasmanian Attraction and Best Ecotourism, as well as winning the Qantas Award for Excellence in Sustainable Tourism," Rob says. "Each of the awards is important to us for different reasons and it's a great thrill to be acknowledged across a wide variety of criteria."
The Best Tasmanian Attraction award follows on success in the same category in 2006 and 2008. It recognises the significance of Bruny Island Cruises in raising the profile of Bruny Island, south-east of Tasmania's capital city of Hobart, as a key destination for local and interstate visitors, along with increasing numbers of international visitors to Tasmania. The ecocruise has been featured in travel media around the globe, including recognition by the prestigious Travel & Leisure Magazine 2008 yearbook as 'One of the Greatest 100 Trips of the World.'
Australian Geographic Story on Robert Pennicott
Featured in the July/August/September issue of Australian Geographic magazine.
Former fisherman Rob Pennicott has gone more than 10 summers now without taking a fish from a net or dragging crayfish from tea-tree pots. Instead, he runs a fleet of six custom-designed boats on the Tasman Sea.
These days, instead of fishing, the 43-year-old annually nets about 20,000 tourists, who take his Bruny Island Cruises tours. Together they explore the dramatic coastlines of Bruny and Tasman islands, south and south-east of Hobart.
Rob fell in love with the Tasmanian coast at the age of 12, after buying his first dinghy from his dad and turning his dream of catching and selling fish into reality. More than three decades later, he's following a new dream - to protect the coast he's always held dear.
Robert Pennicott Features in National Telstra Campaign
Tasmanian eco-cruising pioneer Rob Pennicott, who established Bruny Island Cruises and Tasman Island Cruises, is featuring in a national Telstra advertising campaign for the 2009 Telstra Business Awards highlighting successful Australian innovators.
Under the headline 'It's been a rough ride but we never felt like abandoning ship', the press advertisement portrays Mr Pennicott at his Adventure Bay base, with the purpose-built cruise boats he designed behind him and a distant Mt Wellington on the horizon.
Mr Pennicott's cruises have won a series of major Australian awards, including two national categories in the 2008 Telsta Business Awards: the Telstra MYOB Small Business Award for businesses with five to 20 employees; and the Sensis Social Responsibility Award for demonstrated leadership and contribution by a business to the environment, people, education or the community.
The Pennicott family's successful and dynamic businesses continue to grow, carrying more than 28,000 passengers in the 2007-2008 season along the coastlines of South Bruny Island and the Tasman Peninsula. The 2008-2009 season is on target to increase those numbers.
New Success for the Pennicott Family
Rob and Michaye Pennicott's widely-acclaimed eco-cruises continued their string of award successes in the 2008 Tasmanian Tourism Awards, with Bruny Island Cruises named Tasmania’s Best Tourist Attraction and Tasman Island Cruises winning the award for Best New Tourism Development.
Both cruises explore sections of south-east Tasmania's remote and dramatic coastline, where the highest sea-cliffs in the southern hemisphere rise up 300 metres from the water. Rob Pennicott custom-designed his company's fast, comfortable and sea-kindly craft specifically for this type of eco-cruising.
Bruny Island Cruises operates from Adventure Bay, cruising south as far as the Friars, where Storm Bay meets the Southern Ocean. Tasman Island Cruises runs between Eaglehawk Bay and Port Arthur, giving guests a close encounter with Tasman Island on the way.
Intimate and varied observations of wildlife are key elements of both cruises. The boats drift quietly close to fur seal haul-outs; large pods of dolphins are very common; migrating whales are often sighted; and the variety of birdlife can include sea eagles, albatrosses, shearwaters, Australasian gannets and nesting cormorants.
Rob Pennicott's eco-adventures team wins major national awards
The Pennicott family's journey to success in the nation's most prestigious business awards began nearly a decade ago, when Rob Pennicott established the now internationally-acclaimed Bruny Island Cruises eco-adventure. Last year, he extended his scope to the spectacular coastline between Port Arthur and Eaglehawk Neck, with the opening of his new venture, Tasman Island Cruises.
The outstanding quality and environmental sustainability of his team's tourism operations were acknowledged in Sydney on 10 October, with wins in two major national awards – the Telstra MYOB Small Business Award for businesses with five to 20 employees; and the Telstra Sensis Social Responsibility Award for demonstrated leadership and contribution by a business to the environment, people, education or the community.
New Tasmanian eco-cruise introduces unique sea suits
Winter is no longer a barrier for exploring Tasmania’s sublime coastline with Tasman Island Cruises introducing Australia’s first eco-tourism, all-weather adventure suits.
Owner, Robert Pennicott, and the manufacturers of Antarctic Survival Dry Suits, used for Australian Antarctic Division expeditions, have collaborated to deliver cool climate comfort for the journey from Port Arthur into nature’s playground.
Tasman Island Cruises, the new eco-voyage by Tasmania’s multi-award winning experience Bruny Island Cruises, will provide passengers with the exclusive allweather adventure suits on departures throughout the year.
Mr Pennicott, said the suits now made Tasmania’s south-east coastline a destination
for all seasons.
"Tasmania's coastline is a distinct ecological story that evolves all year," Mr
Pennicott said.
