Wet Behind The Ears

Many adolescent boys dream of running away to sea, but Peter Taylor is one of the few who actually did it. 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-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 eye-opening and superbly written account of a life at sea.