For three decades, Peter Jay Brown has been regularly leaving his family and steady jobs in television production behind to take extended tours aboard the fleet of ships owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The activist marine life preservation group often goes to extreme lengths to carry out its mission, employing some highly confrontational practices like sinking or ramming into vessels thought to be impairing the future survival of seals, whales, and other inhabitants of the ocean. Frequently wearing the title of first mate and nearly always armed with a camera, the most dangerous weapon of all, Brown has stood at the helm as a volunteer beside the society’s founder and the fleet’s captain, Paul Watson, on missions to Alaska, Antarctica, the Galápagos, and practically everywhere else, whether the objective was to prevent poaching in marine sanctuaries or the use of drift nets by large scale fishing operations.