Petrok Rowe

Petrok is one of the cooks at The Ocean Tide. He is a fairly agreeable person who cooks fairly agreeable food. He isn't likely to win any prizes for his cooking or get hired at a fancy restaurant, but at the same time no one complains about his cooking. He describes the food that he cooks as "sturdy." He isn't interested in subtle flavors or fancy ingredients, he makes food that will keep you full for the rest of the day and give you the energy to get things done. Sailor food, he explains. 
Back when he was a cabin boy, the cook got injured right after they were out to sea. Petrok was assigned to help the cook. He learned many important lessons that voyage, including only cut carrots in relatively steady waters. The cook sat there with his hand bandaged and gave Petrok orders. By the time the cook's hand had healed, Petrok was already proficient at cooking for the whole crew. He ended up as the cook on the next trip. Cooking on a ship taught him how to plan out what he needed and how to make use of what he has. There were many times near the end of at trip that required getting creative for meals. Some of those worked, some...not so much. Regardless, he wrote them all down in his journal and made notes to the side about if they should be made again. Other recipes have notes next to them, things like "works fine with older potatoes" or "don't make this after the first week."
Petrok saw himself as the sort of person who would be a sailor for life, up until he came home to an empty house. He returned home from a voyage to find his wife and three year old son missing from the family home. The house was a disaster and there was no sign of either of them. He thought that either his wife had left him or something horrible had happened. He set about to cleaning up the house. Later that day his mother in law came down and told him what had happened. His wife and son were very ill. THis mother in law came to the house, just to see how they were doing, and found the two of them unable to care for themselves but unwilling to reach out for help. She had insisted that they come back and stay with her until they were recovered. She insisted that both the wife and son would have died if not for her stopping by. That day, Petrok decided that he would not go out to sea again. He now saw every day at sea as a day away from his wife and son and vowed that he would always be there when they needed him. He was familiar with the Ocean Tide, so he asked about a job a s cook. He was hired on the spot.