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This true story is an account of three voyages in the waning days of conventional breakbulk cargo ships–the so-called boom ships and an episode in the career of a merchant mariner. Captain Bruce Fisher, second mate then, encounters all manner of things nautical–the good, the bad and the “did that really happen?” Fisher sets out from the west coast on the first of three voyages aboard the venerable freighter Corsair, a so-called tramp ship, to circumnavigate the globe. While applying all the tricks of the tramp trade, Fisher proved the old adage: Truth is stranger than fiction. And, while what actually happens on the high seas may seem farfetched, as he might put it, “You can’t make this stuff up.” The first of his two-volume “Tramp” series, Fisher sails east around the world, calling at Cochin, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Manilla, Bangkok, Lourenço Marques, Cape Town and on to New York…and that on just the first voyage. Before it’s over there’s Vietnam, Pacific Islands, Singapore, Java, Bali, and the final return to Galveston. He encounters: a hurricane, barroom shootout, modern-day pirates, Viet Cong attack, naked nuns and Ring Tail girls and near mutiny.