The son of a commercial fisherman and fish wholesaler in the South Island town of Oamaru, New Zealand/Aotearoa, I came to Australia in November 1972 to take a position with New South Wales State Fisheries as a sea-going biologist. In 1970, the department had launched a 26 m dedicated research vessel, FRV Kapala, with the initial objective of exploring the NSW outer continental shelf and upper-to-mid slope depths (100-1500 m) for unexploited fishery resources; later Kapala projects included stock assessments on established fishing grounds, and gear research.
My role as scientific officer on the vessel spanned 25 years until Kapala was sold in 1997. During that time, I observed over 5000 trawl-catches, recording faunal lists (mainly fishes) for most; to aid these data collections, I photographed most species of fishes I encountered, and deposited tens of thousands of specimens (both fishes and invertebrates) into the Australian Museum collections; most of my photographed specimens are preserved in the museum.
Post Kapala, further research was done on commercial trawlers and, after retirement, on two vessels line-fishing on the Tasmantid Seamounts 2-300 nautical miles off the NSW-southern Queensland coasts; again unusual or rarely caught fishes were photographed and retained for taxonomic assessment. My continuing association with the Australian Museum keeps me appraised of any taxonomic work involving NSW fishes and, if required, allows me to update names attached to my photographs.