Port Lincoln's Bartolomeo (Bob) Puglisi

Bartolomeo (Bob) Puglisi has been in the fishing industry 63 years. He started working as a crew member on a fish trawler at 12 years old in 1954, but even then had been fishing for years. He worked with his brothers in Ulladulla on the New South Wales coast, where many Puglisi families lived. The heads of these families were nearly all fishermen who had been brought out from Lipari, an island off Sicily, by Bob’s father Joe Puglisi.In late 1967 Bob attempted to sail his small fishing vessel, the Angelina Star, from Ballina near the Queensland border to Port Lincoln in South Australia but was foiled by horrific weather and tried again. He was 25 years old and had been prawning for many years. He heard that in Port Lincoln fishermen wanted to fish for prawns, but had little knowledge of what to do. Beginning early in 1968, Bob brought in his first catch off Cowell. The rest is history, the history of the prawn fishing industry in South Australia. Still today Bob owns and operates two 22-metre prawn freezer vessels. Musharella Puglisi is Bob Puglisi’s wife. She and Bob split their time between Ulladulla, in New South Wales, and Port Lincoln. Rhondda Harris is a retired archaeologist. She studied at Flinders University where her honours thesis on archaeology and postcontact Indigenous Adelaide was both the start of her career and the beginning of a passion for researching the history of early Adelaide. She now works on deceased estates, sorting through the accumulations of lives. She sees this as a sort of archaeology and it is a job she loves. Rhondda moved to Adelaide in 1974, has two sons, two grandsons and a dog. Despite growing up in New South Wales, she sees Adelaide as home.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.