At 74, Milton Tynes exudes a calm, quiet confidence in the life and passion he chose, and a true sense of enjoyment of a truly beautiful little piece of Eleuthera – he calls his own. He is one of the last ‘old’ fishermen of Rock Sound, and lives across from the beach that he spends most of his time on.
We profiled him in September 2012. Then he shared the story of his unceremonious exit from primary school in Rock Sound after grade six. It centered on a “Mr. Neilly” from Spanish Wells, with whom he had, as he put it, “a number of ‘run ins’, eventually ending in his expulsion.
The then fifteen year old took up a job in construction at Cotton Bay, making just about two pounds per week [a lot of money back then, according to Mr. Tynes]. It was a brief venture that ended with the realisation that he could make an even better living doing what he had been taught by his father.
He soon joined his father as a career fisherman, and he remarked, “I never worked for another man again.”
