_was_ an able seaman. I had graduated from the right school. It took no
more than minutes to learn the names and uses of the few new ropes. It
was simple. I did not do things blindly. As a small-boat sailor I had
learned to reason out and know the _why_ of everything. It is true, I
had to learn how to steer by compass, which took maybe half a minute; but
when it came to steering "full-and-by" and "close-and-by," I could beat
the average of my shipmates, because that was the very way I had always
sailed. Inside fifteen minutes I could box the compass around and back
again. And there was little else to learn during that seven-months'
cruise, except fancy rope-sailorising, such as the more complicated
lanyard knots and the making of various kinds of sennit and rope-mats.
The point of all of which is that it is by means of small-boat sailing
that the real sailor is best schooled.

And if a man is a born sailor, and has gone to the school of the sea,
never in all his life can he get away from the sea again. The salt of it
is in his bones as well as his nostrils, and the sea will call to him
until he dies. Of late years, I have found easier ways of earning a
living. I have quit the forecastle for keeps, but always I come back to
the sea. In my case it is usually San Francisco Bay, than which no
lustier, tougher, sheet of water can be found for small-boat sailing.

It really blows on San Francisco Bay. During the winter, which is the
best cruising season, we have southeasters, southwesters, and occasional
howling northers. Throughout the summer we have what we call the "sea-
breeze," an unfailing wind off the Pacific that on most afternoons in the
week blows what the Atlantic Coast yachtsmen would name a gale. They are
always surprised by the small spread of canvas our yachts carry. Some of
them, with schooners they have sailed around the Horn, have looked
proudly at their own lofty sticks and huge spreads, then patronisingly