Cam Hunt, 60, has been fishing since he was a teenager. He’d got in a bit of trouble on the mainland, so an older cousin pulled him aside, paid his fines, and shipped him back home to the Chathams for a job on a local fishing boat. I hated the sea, terrified of it!” Nearly half a century later, Hunt owns that boat, the 36-foot Taiko, and if the weather permits today, he’ll be sailing out from Owenga to put out his crayfish pots. But fishing, like other industries, is struggling on the remote islands, 800km east of Christchurch.