By Don Silk. In Softcovers, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR on the title page, First Published in 1994 Reprinted 2006, map, Black and White Photographs, illustrations, 244 pages, Published By Godwit/Random House Auckland. A Near Fine Copy. 'Don silk built his first boat, with a book on boatbuilding in one hand. Scarcely more than a decade later, he was co-owner, with Bob Boyd, of the highly successful inter-island shipping company Silk & Boyd, based in the Cook Islands. At their peak in the 1970s, they operated a fleet of three vessels and moved thousands of tonnes of cargo around the South Pacific, as well as to various international destinations. This book recounts Silk's adventures in the Pacific over nearly four decades. During this time, vessels were brought and sold, rebuilt and wrecked; cargoes of coconuts and corned beef, pineapples and pearl shells were transported, along with crazy English beachcombers and Mormon missionaries complete with bicycles. The excitement of hurricanes and shipwrecks, stowaways and drunken sea captains was matched by the challenge of outwitting officialdom, as Silk endeavoured to explain, on one occasion, a ship of arms and on another, a cargo of liquor worth more than a million dollars'