OF THE SEA

Surfers, divers, fishers…  This is our legacy.  So speak the hell up!

My name is John McMurray, and I’m an ocean-junky. I make a living from the sea.  And saltwater courses though my veins.  Almost every day, I get my fix – when the alarm-clock starts screaming at 3am; when I start the engine up; when I cruise by a marsh-line full of shore birds; when a schoolie striper swirls on a fly or a 200lb tuna crushes a surface bait; when a whale lunge-feeds on a school of menhaden – all of it, it’s awesome, and those that have been on the boat with me know that it is often that I can’t contain myself.  I never tire of it, and my appreciation runs very deep. 

I live a charter captain’s life, where an 8-hour day is cake, and a 16-hour day is the standard (at least during tuna season). Where no day is ever the same, and exceptional things happen all of the time.  

I sure as hell don’t do it for the money, because in the end, given the hours worked, it ain’t much. And I don’t do it because I got let go from my crappy office job a few years, ago, which was in the end a stroke of good fortune – I do it because it allows me to be on the water, pretty much all the time, to get that fix.  Not ever going back, and I will do this until my body won’t let me. 

Read more here: https://conservefish.org/2018/10/22/of-the-sea/