He made the acquaintance of the banker Delestang and his wife and occasionally had the opportunity to join them, riding on their coach (the money transfers from his uncle were sent to the Delestang-Bank). Later he wrote about him:

'Her husband (as I sat facing them both), with his thin, bony nose and a perfectly bloodless, narrow physiognomy clamped together, as it were, by short, formal side whiskers, had nothing of Sir Leicester Dedlock's "grand air" and courtly solemnity. He belonged to the haute bourgeoisie only, and was a banker, with whom a modest credit had been opened for my needs. He was such an arden - no, such a frozen-up, mummified Royalist that he used in current conversation turns of speech contemporary, I should say, with the good Henri Quatre; and when talking of money matters, reckoned not in francs, like the common, godless herd of post-Revolutionary Frenchmen, but in obsolete and forgotten ecus - ecus of all money units in the world!'

He made his first real sea-journey as a passenger aboard the ship 'Mont Blanc'. The ship left the harbor of Marseille on December 15th, 1874 for Martinique. For the first time Conrad travelled to one of the places which he had studied so carefully on the school globe in Lemberg. The 'Mont Blanc' returned on May 23rd the next year to Marseille, but already a month later Conrad found himself again aboard the 'Mont Blanc', this time serving as a trainee sailor, going to Haiti. The night before Christmas Eve the ship returned to Le Havre.

More voyages followed, always interrupted by long times ashore in Marseille. There was a trip (as steward) aboard the 'Saint Antoine' to Haiti, Martinique, Colombia and (possibly) Venezuela. On this ship he met Dominic Cervoni, who was to become the model in some of his works, such as Jean Peyrol (The Rover), Attilio Pieschi (Suspense) and Nostromo.

Conrad returned to Marseille mid-February 1877.

The next extraordinary time in the life of Conrad was his time as a gun-smuggler. There is really little known about the detailed circumstances and background-story. Much of the story is based upon Conrad's own writings and upon the letters of his uncle, who also supported him well during this time.