Many adolescent boys dream of running away to sea, but Peter Taylor is one of the few who actually did. With some fast-talking and fictitious references, sixteen-year-old Peter found a position crewing on a British tramp steamer from sleepy Wellington to post-war England, via Australia, and apartheid-riven South Africa. So began a series of journeys around the world, interspersed with time in ports throughout Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. Peter crewed with many sailors - rough, cultured, reclusive or outgoing, all with different reasons for choosing a sailor's life, and experienced both comradeship and hardships on the sea. Gun-toting soldiers, terrifying hurricanes, Equatorial initiation ceremonies, the 1951 Waterfront Workers' strike and the sailor's catch cry of 'a girl in every port' all feature in this account of life at sea.