Mine was not the sort of life to make one long to coil up one’s ropes on land, the customs and ways of which I had finally almost forgotten. And so when times for freighters got bad, as at last they did, and I tried to quit the sea, what was there for an old sailor to do? I was born in the breezes, and I had studied the sea as perhaps few men have studied it, neglecting all else … Thus the voyage which I am now to narrate was a natural outcome not only of my love of adventure, but of my lifelong experience.

— J.S., Sailing Alone