Providing Experiences
that You Will Remember
for a Lifetime
Welcome aboard Kraken Charters with Capt. Ishmael Hersey. We provide fishing and cruising charters at affordable rates. Our client experience is our number one priority. No matter if that’s deep sea fishing or a day at the sandbar we believe that everyone should have the time of their lives. We will go above and beyond to make sure of that. Capt. Hersey has tread these same waters since a very young age and knows them like the back of his hand. You will be in great hands with Captain Ishmael Hersey (“Ish the Fish”) or any other Kraken crew members as we are very selective about who joins our team. Its a badge of honor to don the Kraken symbol as an employee of ours and we don’t take that lightly.
Meet the Crew
Justin Barsanti
President
Note from the President:
Thank you for checking out Florida’s premier boat charter organization! At Kraken Charters we believe in the power of the ocean and our connection to it. Humans have an irresistible draw to water. It fascinates us. It soothes and heals us. It frightens us with its incredible power and mystery. It also puts us in a state of calm, peacefulness, unity, and gives us a sense of pure happiness and satisfaction with life in the moment. Our talented and professional team have an insatiable love for this connection between ocean and people and work tirelessly to bring the two together. Whether it be through fishing, cruising, partying, relaxing, or any other adventure we offer we aim to create an innate relationship with the our clients and the water that will last a lifetime. We create unforgettable memories and unparalleled feelings of utopia that cannot be erased for a lifetime. This is the same thing we do with our own families and treat our clients no differently. I am confident that in choosing to take this journey with Kraken Charters you have made the best first step to this quality connection and lifetime of memories by allowing us to provide a safe, exciting, and fun environment on the water that will have you and your family and friends coming back over and over again.
Sincerely
Justin Barsanti
President
Ishmael Hersey
Head Captain, VP of Operations
Tom Briese
Captain
Eric Breuer
Captain
About The Kraken…
The Kraken is one of the most terrifying creatures of Norse mythology, a legendary sea monster that lurks in the deep waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. The Kraken has been described as a huge squid or octopus with tentacles that can reach more than a mile long and eyes the size of dinner plates. The Kraken can attack ships, drag them down to the depths, and devour the sailors as its prey.
Although the Kraken was well known to sailors, it really took off when French sci-fi author Jules Verne featured a very similar creature in his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (That’s distance, not depth!). In the book, the submarine Nautilus comes into contact with a terrifying giant octopus (simply called a poulpe, French for octopus, in the book), which attacks and nearly crushes Captain Nemo and his passengers. Perhaps the oldest known sea monster myth is that of Leviathan – a terrifying creature from the Bible’s Old Testament. Leviathan has been depicted in several different ways, but usually looks like a giant sea serpent. There’s also Jörmungandr, from Norse mythology, another giant sea serpent, and Scylla from ancient Greece, who used to be a beautiful nymph. The most famous depictions of the Kraken show it with eight giant tentacles and huge eyes, devouring ships. The Kraken was first described as an octopus-like animal in the 18th century, and since then, the idea that the Kraken could be a cephalopod has stuck. The scariest thing about the Kraken is how big its supposed to be. Some sailors mistook it for an island, others say it was up to a mile long! Either way, once you encountered one, you’d be very lucky to get away alive!
Could The Kraken be real?
Just as the beautiful mermaids seen by homesick sailors were probably manatees, so the Kraken probably has lots of natural explanations for what witnesses described. These included natural sea animals like giant squid, octopus, wales, sharks and shoals of fish, land masses and rocks, debris floating on the sea surface, and even waves. The biggest recorded octopus (so far!) is the Giant Pacific Octopus, which lives in the waters around Japan, Mexico and the USA and Canada. It can live at depths of up to 2,000 ft, and can weigh as much as 157lbs! They only live around 3-4 years though, which is long for an octopus but not very long for us! The giant squid can get even bigger! The biggest known species of squid is the Giant Squid, although the Colossal Squid is pretty close behind. The largest one recorded had tentacles over 40 feet long. They also live in the Pacific ocean (not a great place to swim if you don’t like giant cephalopods!) and most of the ones observed have been dead, since they tend to live deep in the ocean and rarely come to the surface. They also have eyes the size of dinner plates – the biggest known in the animal kingdom!
And of course, there’s always the possibility that the sailors sighting the Kraken might have had a little too much rum! Or it could be…a real Kraken!
Today, the word Kraken is synonymous with giant octopus and sea monsters. It’s also a hugely popular feature of films like Pirates of the Caribbean, 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Clash of the Titans. It’s also the name of a rum, a cryptocurrency, and an NHL hockey team in Seattle… and now a first class charter service!
It looks like the Kraken is here to stay!
Why did we choose The Kraken?
While we definitely enjoy the folklore, enchantment, and mystery of The Kraken and the stories behind it we ultimately chose the Kraken because of its dominant force and legendary status over the oceans. The Kraken commands respect. Despite its intimidating nature we are fairly certain you have a small, well 0% chance, of The Kraken giving an appearance during your charter. At the end of the day we just love the ocean and old salty sailor tales of sea monsters and have always loved the idea of The Kraken. It was something we could all get on board with from a branding perspective to make great apparel, other merch, and market our vessels with.