Living by the shoreline may pose a danger during storms but aside from those rare occasions, the perks outweigh the risks.

That’s according to Gava Perosa, a fisherman from the village of Utuali’i, living by the sea gives you easy access to all the glorious resources of the ocean.

With fish, crabs, sea urchins and other sea creatures in your backyard, making a living isn’t that hard.

Gava explains that some of what he catches every day goes towards feeding his family while the rest is sold for a bit of cash.

Living such a productive life pushes him to ask, why are people so lazy when we can make a good livelihood out of what we have?

“Here in the village its simple, if you just laze around then you will go hungry,” Gava told the Village Voice.

“I don’t know why people are lazy; the way I see it, we villagers can earn a lot more money from our work than those who are employed.

“I mean, no one in my family is employed but we get by through what we earn from the sea. We use some fish to feed the family and we take the other fish to sell to make a bit of money; that’s how simple it is.

“The average price of fish is about $30 and if I keep selling what I catch every single day then I can make quite a bit for my family.”

In earning quite a bit from fish sales, Gava says that it all goes towards taking care of his family.

“The money we earn from sales goes towards taking care of things within my family,” he said.

“I know many people in Samoa understand that there is just so much that we need to do and that is where the money comes in.”

Asked about any issues, Gava says that the weather is sometimes a problem.

“As a fisherman, the only issue we face is the weather because if it’s not good then we have to look at the dangers we face when going out to sea,” he said.

“That’s the only thing that worries us; we must always consider the safety of our people and make it our priority to stay safe.

“But I guess we must be grateful that the weather is what we’re used to right now. We haven’t experienced many storms lately and the fish is still plentiful.”

Another great thing about living off of the sea is that fish isn’t the only creature you can earn money from.

“Another great thing about being a fisherman is that we can also earn money from other sea creatures (faiai pusi),” he said.

“We can earn about $20 on average from selling creatures. That money adds on nicely to what we make from fish sales.

“That’s a little look into the life of a village fisherman. My family is doing really well and we make enough to get by on a day to day basis.”