A combination of travelogue and entertaining and amusing narrative about working on boats. The book is an extraordinary and sometimes hilarious tale of misadventures and fiascos. Woven in there are insightful personal accounts of life and loves - from growing up in Gravesend in the swinging sixties and mixing with rough tearaways whose behaviour would most likely end them up in prison - to following intuition to escape to another life and another place. It is a deeply personal account of his progression from an unhappy childhood on a council estate in the late 1950's, to life afloat skippering pleasure yachts in the Mediterranean. We see him getting a job as cook at the tender age of fifteen working in the hard environment of Thames steam tugs when Health and safety hadn't yet been invented. This was a lucky break as normally jobs on the tugs went to relatives of existing crews. He had just happened to go into the Ship Towage office when there was an immediate vacancy. This was the beginning of his life afloat.

Six years later the viewing of a short film clip in a local cinema was a defining moment which completely changed the direction of his life. He suddenly knew that sailing was what he wanted to do. This led on to being accepted at Warsash Navigation School, and after qualifying, the command of various pleasure yachts. One of these he took through the Belgian canals and then on to Le Havre where he took the French inland waterways to the Mediterranean, where it was to be available for charter. This yacht was so disastrous in its design and conception, and the things that subsequently happened were so unbelievable, that it was the initial instigation for the writing of this account. Some people might question whether climbing up a cliff face in the dark or being tossed around in a storm in the Bay of Biscay could be considered the dream, but at least he was doing what he wanted to do.