Jon Vanderfleet

When I was younger I wanted to create cartoons, which evolved into my desire to be an artist. I spent the vast majority of my teenage years learning the craft of wheel-thrown ceramics. It was a lifestyle I greatly enjoyed yet I couldnï¿½t satiate my desire for adventure. Somewhere inside me I felt a pull, only I couldnï¿½t figure out where I was to head.

My journey into the world of Marine Biology began aboard a fifty foot sailboat, three hundred miles out at sea. In the summer of two thousand and four a long time friend called me out of the blue and asked if I could join a four member crew to sail a boat from the North Carolina coast down to the bottom of the Bahamian Island Chain. Somewhere along our seven hundred nautical miles, nostalgic feelings bubbled up from the depths. That was all I needed to know where I was supposed to be.

Currently I am finishing up my Associates degree in Marine Technology at Cape Fear Community College and work in Dr. Scharfï¿½s Fishery Ecology lab at UNCW as a lab technician. Life by the sea has been quite exciting. I can feel the salt accumulating in my blood as a day out a sea is just another day at the office, so to speak.

I have the high hopes of completing my B.A. in Marine Biology here at UNCW in the years to come and am toying with the idea of a graduate degree. For now however school and work are both exciting and challenging and my next big step is to move aboard a thirty foot sailboat for a couple of years and acquire my OUPV captainï¿½s license and dive certifications. Oh yeah and thereï¿½s the constant surfing, free diving, spear fishing, camping, boating and the good old hook and line fishing that takes up as much of my free time as possible.

Weï¿½ll see where I end up next.