Between Storms and Still Waters: Reflections from a Scottish Fisherman

PETERHEAD, Scotland - Oct. 25, 2025 - PRLog -- The sea has no schedule.
It doesn't start at seven and finish at five.
It moves when it chooses, and so do I.

Some nights I work through the dark, chasing langoustines that only rise when the water is calm and the stars are out. On other nights, the radar lights up like fireworks, but when I cast the net, nothing.
The sea gives what it gives, and it never explains.

Life on a trawler is a kind of meditation. Not the peaceful kind people imagine, but a raw awareness of wind, cold, and solitude. Hours pass in the hum of the engine and the creak of the ropes. There's no one to talk to, just the sea,endless, alive, and indifferent.

Once, a storm caught me halfway home. The boat rolled and groaned, and I thought I'd never see land again. In those moments, everything false falls away. There's just breath, fear, and the question: What am I doing here?

And yet there are other times, when the nets are down, the sea is glass, and the stars hang low, when I feel something close to peace.
The sunsets are astonishing. Even a single cloud forming on the horizon can feel like a message from something greater.

I grew up in a small village in Turkey and came to Scotland nearly twenty years ago. It's home now. I love the people, the humour, even the weather in its own wild way. I've broken bones, smashed my ankle, worked through pain that would send most people home, because there are no sick days on the sea. If the boat isn't moving, there's no money.
And when there's no money, the worries start: bills, the mortgage, the children's activities, all the little things that make life both heavy and precious.

Still, I keep going. For my daughter, for my son, for the hope that they'll have choices I never had.

People see seafood on a plate,  neat, fresh, shining, but they rarely see the man behind it, fighting sleep, weather, and doubt. They don't see the small, stubborn joy when the nets come up full, or the quiet acceptance when they don't.

Maybe that's what the sea teaches best, not control, not certainty, but humility.

Every catch, every sunrise, every wave reminds me: life can turn in a second. The sea doesn't belong to me. I'm only ever borrowing a moment of its grace.
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