The Martin Sheen

While fishing in Port McNeill last week I noticed an interesting sailboat glide into the marina. I like checking out boat names, mostly because a lot of them seem silly to me, and this was no exception. The Martin Sheen.

I’m used to names like “It’s a Fisher”, or “Finally” or the “Santa” something. But this was the first boat I had seen that was named after a celebrity. It was a big, fancy boat too so it didn’t seem like a joke. The vessel had a tiny pirate flag and a carved wooden mermaid at the bow. I thought it was interesting enough to take a couple of photos.

This morning when I checked my instagram feed as I do when I wake up, I saw the exact same boat turn up on the page of a very popular National Geographic photographer who I followed recently. What a coincidence! Here’s the post:

View this post on Instagram

Photo by @cristinamittermeier // Last week, members of the Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw set off to serve an eviction notice to Cermaq/Mitsubishi fish farms. This industry is intensely harmful to wild salmon stocks, polluting waterways with organic matter, pesticides, fish viruses and fish lice. I feel honored to stand with the Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw people in their effort to evict fish farms from their ancestral waters. Please sign the petition to get fish farms out of BC by clicking the link in my bio. #fishfarmsgetout #musgamagwdzawadaenuwk #fish #farms #salmon #britishcolumbia

A post shared by Paul Nicklen (@paulnicklen) on Aug 30, 2016 at 9:11am PDT

So this must have been happening right around the same time we were there fishing. It turns out the boat is a research vessel owned by the Sea Shepherd organization and was named after their longtime benefactor, you guessed it: Martin Sheen himself.

Kinda neat, right?