Rex grew up in the 1930s on Stewart Island surrounded by the sea and people whose lives were ruled by the tides and the weather. Despite his mothers’ efforts to prevent him going into an industry that had taken the lives of some of her immediate family, Rex spent nearly 50 years making a living from the seas around his childhood home and along the Fiordland Coast. He remembers a time when crayfish were considered not worth catching. In this profile he gives an account of those early days and how things quickly changed when overseas tastes caught on to the crayfish flavour. The early part of the profile provides a few details about his parents' backgrounds in connection with both southern Fiordland and Stewart Island, particularly the small community that lived on The Neck.