Skipper Experience

Jon and Open Sea IIHi I'm Jon Taylor.

I have been operating small boats since the age of four, which means I have been having fun messing about in boats for 58 years. I started out in small row boats (still my first love) and went through a chain of small sailboats up to 30 feet. At fifteen I was sailing alone to the California offshore islands. I raced larger boats and delivered boats up and down the coast. At nineteen I worked a few months on deep sea ships. There has never been a time in my life when I didn't have a boat of some kind. I love kayaks and did well over 1000 miles in one year. 30 years ago I moved to Sointula, BC and started commercial fishing. I have seined, gillnetted, and trolled salmon, crabbed, and jigged rock cod. I was never much of a fisherman, but fishing gave me the opportunity to be out on the water and earn a living at the same time. During 30 years of fishing I have explored a vast number of nooks and crannies, channels, bays, and coves most of them within 40 miles of my home. Some years I spent over 100 days at anchor in my own boat. Those boats vary from a 28-foot dory that I built myself to the 40-foot west coast troller that I have today.

One year when fishing was poor I got a second job doing on the water education about marine mammals. I love being on the water and explaining the natural world to people who want to learn about it. A few years ago I had a chance to get my skippers papers. I'm qualified to operate 100-ton fish boats, 60-ton passenger vessels (like whale watch boats) and tugs.

My love is exploring the small and quiet places of this world. I am worried about their future. I hope by introducing people to these special places and showing them how delicate they are, that the people who have come to know them will save them.