According to Frances Diane Robotti, there were three types of whalers: those who hoped to own their own whaleship someday, those who were seeking adventure, and those who were running from something on shore. Generally only those who hoped to make a career of whaling went out more than once. Since a whaler's pay was based on his "lay", or share of the catch, he sometimes returned from a long voyage to find himself paid next to nothing, or even owing money to his employers. Even a bonanza voyage paid the ordinary crewman less than if he had served in the merchant fleet. The lay system was a gamble and sailors were never ensured decent wages. Richard Boyenton of the "Bengal" only earned six and a quarter cents after five months at sea, but occasionally sailors got lucky and brought home a significant amount of money after just a couple of voyages. More commonly sailors would earn very little after years at sea. Ships that returned to port less than full of oil were called "broken voyages" while ships that came home overflowing were praised. The "Loper" returned to Nantucket with its deck and hold chock full of casks of oil while ships like the "Brewster" prioritized oil so significantly that they threw food and water overboard to make more room for oil. There was a romance to whaling; going to sea was a young man's adventure, particularly when he wound up in the South Sea paradises of the Sandwich Islands, Tahiti, or the Marquesas Islands, where a young American man might find himself surrounded by young women ready to freely offer him their charms, something he was unlikely to experience at home. Many, including Herman Melville, jumped ship, apparently without repercussions. After his romantic interlude among the Typees on Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas, Melville joined another whaler that took him to Hawaii, from where he sailed for home as a crewman on . Along with Robert Louis Stevenson, Paul Gauguin, and others, Melville cultivated the image of the Pacific islands as romantic paradises. The California Gold Rush offered young men an adventure to California, for free if they signed on as a whaler. Many whalers (including captains and officers) abandoned the crew in San Francisco there, leaving abundant ships deserted in the bay. A large number of crewmen on American, British, and other countries vessels that participated in whaling in the 19th century created scrimshaw. Scrimshaw is the practice of drawing on whale teeth or other forms of ivory with various tools, typically sailor's knives or other sharp instruments.