After graduating from the HMS Worcester Naval College in England he spent the next five years at sea as a Deck/Navigating Officer. The latter two years in the Far East were the inspiration for his first book KWANGCHOW. After leaving the sea David joined the Grace Line in New York as a management trainee. He spent the rest of his long career in the maritime industry and worked all over the world in various executive positions.
He retired in 2008 and moved to Mexico where together with wife Susan Bruhaug and dog Bess he lives on the north shore of Lake Chapala in the village of Ajijic. The lake is 5,000 feet above sea level in the Sierra Madre Mountains and the climate there is considered to be the best in the world, neither too hot in the summer nor too cold in the winter.