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Almost every young lad on that waterfront was waiting for the right age to come when he could have the passport and go to sea. The sea was not only the great highway out to the world, it was also the means to earn the money and get out to see the world. During that time there was very little other way to travel widely. When H.W. Tobin was sixteen years old, he joined the merchant service, signed on the first sea-going ship as a galley boy. At last his desire was realized.

Sailors have always faced the dangers that are part of life and the heritage of seamen as well as the spell of the beach-comber when there was not a ship to sign on. Today's seaman cannot learn to be a seaman in the old sense, because there are not ships and the ship's company to learn seamanship. He cannot keep himself physically fit because there is not the work to do.

When a sailor was paid off and he stepped on shore with money, he was soon surrounded by land sharks, both male and female.