A Modern Buccaneer

Born on the banks of Sydney Harbour, I learned to swim before I could walk and soon handled small boats while other children stayed far from the water. My father, a veteran sea‑captain, had steered his vessels from the frozen docks of Archangel to the fever‑stricken ports of Jamaica, noting in his log the scars of battle, disease and wrecks as ordinary household words. His tales of poisoned arrows on Bougainville and fights with Maori chiefs filled my childhood with a sense that the world was a deck of cards dealt by fate, and that a good sailor learned to play them without complaint.

As a boy the bustling quays of Sydney were a theater of marvels; cutters glistened like Spanish galleons at dawn. Each ship that slipped through the Heads carried cargoes of shaddocks, bananas, woven cloth and mysterious idols, filling my mind with visions of distant islands and hidden treasure. I spent hours befriending crew members, wandering the lower decks, and soaking up the eclectic mix of British seamen and island‑born sailors, feeding my hunger for adventure on the seas.