Junk Boat Tours

Junk Boat Tours runs four restored wooden junks and two modern catamarans out of Aberdeen, offering harbour sails, island-hopping day trips to Lamma and the Soko Islands, and private charters. The company was founded in 2016 by a skipper and a marine biologist who met restoring the first boat.

The business is small — around thirty people including crew, guides and a four-person office — and deliberately unscalable. Groups are capped at eighteen, guides are trained on the marine ecology of the harbour as well as the safety brief, and the company works with a local conservation group on plastic surveys during off-peak runs.

It is seasonal work with a genuinely good atmosphere. Crew are on the water most days, the office team goes out regularly, and the founders still skipper. Winter is quiet and the company is upfront that hours drop between January and March.