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There’s never a dull moment out at sea.
Ahead of the season 21 premiere of Deadliest Catch on Friday, Aug. 1, Captain Sig Hansen tells PEOPLE that this year’s setting felt especially meaningful. For this trip, the captains and crew ventured through “unforgiving 50-foot seas” farther west than anyone has in 30 years to reach the abandoned Adak Island in Alaska, per the official logline.
“We went as far west as we legally could up above there, so it was pretty nostalgic for me,” Hansen shares. “And it was just a little different strategy. For those who know the show, I was with Johnathan Hillstrand, and we were prospecting. So we were looking for crab together, where normally we would be competing with each other and now we’re actually teamed up.”
“I guess that’s what happens when you get old, you start to get realistic,” he jokes. “So it was something that we haven’t done before and got to fish in an area that I haven’t been out in in decades. It was just interesting to be able to do that.”
Another sentimental element of the season was Hansen getting to watch his daughter, Mandy, as her own captain. “My daughter impressed me,” he gushes.
The threat of the Bering Sea’s harsh waters left the team in several life-threatening situations as well.
As PEOPLE’s exclusive sneak peek at the first episode shows, there is a dark side to the job. Hansen says one of the scarier moments this season occurred shortly after the mission began when Jake Anderson’s Titan Explorer had a leak that caused his crew to “abandon ship.”
“When we heard that they were in the water, I mean, that changes everything,” Hansen explains. “As a fisherman, when you’re out in the middle of nowhere and you hear your friends are in the water, you go running, you do what you can to save them.”
Discovery
Dangerous incidents like those are what Hansen reveals led him to change his mind about a potential retirement.
Last year, he told PEOPLE he didn’t have any plans to step back from his career, but now he says he has a different perspective.
“Well, I’m a fisherman. You’ve got to remember, you’re talking to a professional liar here,” he laughs. “No, I think I’ve got a few more years left in me. I think about it all the time and when I do think about ‘retiring,’ it’s only because I’ve lost so many people, and I’m more fearful every time we go out on the water.”
“Part of it is just, you think about your own mortality, and I’m fearful,” he admits. “I don’t have the same mentality I did as before, where you look at everything as a challenge. And it’s still challenging, but it’s not the same. I’ve been there, done that, and now I want to spend more time with my family, my wife, look at all the years and decades that she’s given up for me waiting. It’s got to go the other way, and so you see things differently, that’s all.”
For the time being, Hansen says he “will continue to do it” but acknowledges that “retirement is obvious” in his near future.
“I’ve got four grandkids now,” he notes. “I used to laugh at all these old-timers when they’d brag about their grandkids and talk about how that’s their whole world. I’m like, ‘You guys are nuts. Can’t we talk about fishing?’ And now, I’m one of those guys. Can’t help it. And I love it, I really do.”
Discovery
When he thinks back to the start of his career as the youngest captain in Alaska at just 22-years-old, Hansen says his fearlessness made him successful.
However, this quality is not something he would recommend to his daughter as she considers following in his footsteps.
“I had no boundaries because I had to prove to everyone that I could be as good or better — you had to,” Hansen recalls. “And my advice to her would be, just know those boundaries. Because when you do overstep, bad things can happen, real things can happen. And by boundaries, I mean your boat’s limitations, the weather conditions and what you’re dealing with, because it’s very real. And sometimes the most simple mistake can cost you your life or someone else’s.”
Still, at this point in his life, Hansen can say with full confidence that he is “the best of the best.”
“I’m good at what I do. I’m the best there is,” he quips. “Nobody’s better. Nobody. That’s why I’m doing it.”
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Season 21 of Deadliest Catch premieres Friday, Aug. 1 at 8 p.m ET/PT on Discovery Channel.
