But the time was rapidly drawing near when I was to begin my second series of bouts with John Barleycorn.

When I was fourteen, my head filled with the tales of the old voyagers, my vision with tropic isles and far sea-rims, I was sailing a small centreboard skiff around San Francisco Bay and on the Oakland Estuary.

I wanted to go to sea.

I wanted to get away from monotony and the commonplace.

I was in the flower of my adolescence, a-thrill with romance and adventure, dreaming of wild life in the wild man-world.