New Zealand

From the time I was born Mum and Dad told me, "you can go in the truck when you can walk", I walked at nine months old, Dad said that's a bit quick "I'll take ya when you can talk." Two months later I was riding with him. His truck had an 8v92 Detroit, now days I just drool when one goes past! Love that noise. Well pretty much up until I went to school I spent my time trying to go with Dad. After I turned five and started going to school it was a bit hard to go with Dad unless he happened to go by, but with the West Coast being such a small place everybody knew My Old Man, (his nickname was "Diesel Dick") so I was reasonably well known amongst other companies drivers. All I had to do was, go down to the local quarry and hitch a ride with those guys. Although I must confess at 5 or 6 years old I was already a bigot, and the Cummins engines that the dumpers were running in their Internationals were no comparison for the screaming of a Big GM!

In between time Mum and Dad were drumming into me that I was not to become a truck driver. They really did instill in me that I could be anything, do anything, except be a truck driver! Dad stopped driving when I was about nine, but I was still able to get out and about in the trucks of various other companies.

 When I was twelve we moved to Brisbane, Australia. Mum and Dad spilt up shortly after and that was pretty much the end of me and trucks for the next fifteen years or so. 

We moved back to N.Z. when I was fifteen. I was beginning to get sick of school and started talking about leaving. Parents and Teachers all tried to talk me out of leaving, but I knew I couldn't face university or even the kind of job that university prepares you for! Mainly I hated doing home work! So I got myself a spot on a course for training cadet fisherman. This wasn't a totally strange thing to do as my Grandfather had been a fisherman and Dad also had a stint at it after finishing driving. The course was good, but I was only on it for 2 weeks before going out on a boat for "work experience", I got offered a job and never went back to the course! By this stage I was Seventeen. It had taken that long to get around parents and teachers.

So I started my working career as a fisherman! It was good fun, we were well paid, and work 20 days has 10 days off. NO HOMEWORK!!! It was interesting, there was seamanship to learn: - coastal navigation, stability, meteorology, anti collision rules and lots of other stuff such as fire fighting & first aid. Then there was net mending, splicing (wire and rope), fish handling, knife sharpening, filleting, man management as I got higher up the ranks) and this was only as  deckhand through to Bosun.

I was made redundant at the age of 20. I moved on to a factory fillet boat. I hated it! We worked 6 hours on, 6 hours off, 7 days a week for three months. The thing I really hated was that they destroy the fishery, where as the wet fish boats (fresh fish) have to move to bring the fish in and give an area a rest the factory boats just sit there and catch and catch till it's all gone. It doesn't make sense, so I got back on a wet fish boat.

Shortly after I got promoted to first mate, and I had to learn more new skills, Ship handling, more stability, more rules, celestial navigation, better man management, I also had to learn how to catch fish! I learnt that in an underpowered vessel to use less wire to get the net to the bottom (that way it will react better/ faster when you want it do something. I learnt that that little knob showing on the depth sounder is not a fish "mark", but a lump in the seabed waiting to tear the $250 000 worth of gear your towing right off the back of the boat. It was amazing, and I'm very proud of these things that I have done, I can legally sail as First Mate on A New Zealand Fishing Boat of any size anywhere in the world.

But, I hear people say the sea is always different, to me it was at the stage where the sea had 4 different states, Calm, Getting Rough, Rough or Getting Calm. The big companies were (still are) thrashing the fishing grounds and I could be no longer part of it. So when the company said "Oh you will have to go back to the Factory Boats, and as a Second Mate," I said "So long, you can stick it in your arse." and so my fishing days were over. But I had seen this coming for sometime and about 18 months previously bought a small 6 tonner for delivering gravel round town....

AND NOW............

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