Two men in a boat

Unfortunately for Ben, the jetty at Vivonne Bay as busy on Sunday morning.

Ben introduced me to the fishermen patiently attempting to catch their lunch from the jetty and banter was exchanged about how long it had been since Ben was last there and the poor price of crays.

After a few minutes of chat, we dragged a small aluminium dinghy complete with outboard motor to the edge of the jetty and we were lowered down to the sea by one of the onlookers. This was going to be our method of transport to Ben's trawler.

All going well so far...

Ben pulled the start cord of the outboard a few times, flicking the choke switch to and fro to coax it into life;

No joy

He had a few more goes;

No joy

He fiddled with all available levers and switches and tried again;

No joy

By this time, each pull of the cord was becoming slower and slower as Ben's right arm strength faded, so I had a few pulls;

Still no joy and we're starting to drift out to sea.

Ben phoned his mate who was on his boat;

No reply

Never one to be out witted by an outboard motor or uncommunicative friend, Ben directed me towards a pair of oars lying strapped to the side of the dinghy.

I duly unstrapped the oars, passing one to Ben.

Each oar had a metal pivot point (oarlock pin) attached which slotted into a socket on the side of the boat. At least that was the theory.

Try as we might the pin would not fit into the socket.

At this point Ben explained that he had never needed to row this dinghy before and hadn't therefore ever had cause to try the oars to see if they worked.

By this time tears were running down our cheeks as we were acutely aware that an able cray fisherman and a pom were struggling with the basics of boatmanship much to the delight of the crowd on the jetty!

In order to prevent the dinghy from floating off into the sunset, we each took an oar and began rowing Canadian-canoe style - in an aluminium dinghy - dragging an outboard motor behind us!!

By this point, we had successfully created a scene which resembled a cross between Deliverance and Brokeback Mountain! (with an audience)

As we neared Ben's 'real boat' (the trawler) the current became too strong for us and we started to drift away to the side of the trawler.

Luckily Ben's friend had seen us and came across in his dinghy and towed us to the trawler.

Quick check of the trawler (all fine) and we hopped back into the dinghy and were towed back to the jetty to face the music from the crowd.

As a result of this debacle, I think Ben's considering moving his trawler to another bay!!