30 years in a leaky boat.

LIFE ON THE OCEAN

This is my first attempt at blogging!

Becoming a professional fisherman was all I ever wanted to do when I was young.So naturally I started work as a deckhand on a boat fishing for Rock Lobster.After earning my first pay cheque(Australian spelling),I nearly fell over as it was more money than I had ever seen! This quickly made me think about doing this for myself,but I thought that I had better crawl before I walked , This was a great lifestyle, earning good money,being able to buy whatever I needed, and above all being on the ocean..Staying on that boat for several months the time came for me to move on and try fishing for a different species.After spending several years on all types of boats I decided to go it alone.

WORKING FOR MYSELF

After obtaining my own Fishing licence, of which I had to take on and fight the Government for as no new licences were allowed to ever be issued again, I started to work for myself.As the years went by I met my wife and started our family of which I'm very proud of and together we built a foundation for our future. Learning as I went along I gradually learnt quite a lot about fishing and all the different aspects and techniques, but as time went by the fish stocks started to decline,so competition started to raise its ugly head.Mates turned against each other,where once we all fished together, now we were competing against each other. That word JEALOUSY became rampant so I decided to get out.

A CHANGE IN DIRECTION

I had decided that instead of competing with others that Charter fishing was another alternative. That way I could still be on the water and fish, and I didn't have to catch heaps, all I had to do was take customers out for an enjoyable days fishing; so long as everyone caught something! So off I went and started our charter fishing business.

TECHNOLOGY

A coulpe of years went by and things were good. We had built up a good number of regular clients, and there weren't many days that we didn't come home empty handed.This meant that I had started to get a good name as a reliable skipper. Everything was going good until TECHNOLOGY got better and some clients started sneeking GPSs on board in their bags.Nothing was sacred anymore as my favourite fishing spots were being saved onto their devices. So I got out and quit while we were ahead so to speak.

COMPETITION

My wife had previously worked in hospitality so we decided to mortgage the house and borrow what seemed a fortune and purchased a small business in the fast food industry. I was like a duck out of water but I was prepared to give it a go.Having employed up to ten staff at times, we thought great this is going to be our little nest egg for when we retire. Boy were we wrong just as things were looking up,along came a large supermarket. We thought ok this is good for our small town.As with most large stores greed crept in and eventually they started selling products in direct competition with us. Eventually this had a huge affect on our little business and things went downhill very fast !!! We ended up bankrupt. That shop is still there ,and has been empty for 5yrs.

MY SUMMARY

So here I am today a proud member of Wealthy Affiliate.I cant remember how I stumbled across this site but I am happy that I did,as it has given me back my desire to succeed once again. I have nothing but admiration for Kyle and Carson for creating this fantastic platform on which I can start what I hope is another online success story.

MY CONCLUSSION

We are all in the same LEAKY BOAT it just that with Wealthy Affiliate they give us the tools to repair the holes and hopefully all STAY AFLOAT.

Thanks for reading

Regards Mark (fawlty)