If a young man walks up to me one day and tell me that he is contemplating a career as a seaman, there will be many, many things that I shall tell him. First of all, there are neither great adventures nor any more new lands to discover, but there will be experiences that will stay in his heart forever. The modern sailor has to go to school first, so that he can learn how to use a spanner instead of a sword, the GPS instead of a sextant. He has to start off his sea career as a cadet, the lowest form of life onboard. He might have to wash the toilets and scrub the floors, and cleaning will become one of the most important skills in his sea life. I shall tell him about the orientation games onboard. About new cadets have to stand at the forward station wearing only an underwear, shivering in the cold wind, with the instruction to look out for the imaginary equator line that will run across the sea. About new cadets have to be shaved bald as an
