I have not been a regular in putting my boat in the water and generally need prompting. We had done some boating and fishing in recent times and I had damaged my foot badly on an escapade some weeks ago while camping. In that trip we had seen the value of fishing at dawn. While away camping we realized our strike rate was much better at dawn and so we decided that we would try a little dawn fishing locally.

 [singlepic id=223 w=320 h=240 float=right]The previous week we had put the boat in at our local marina and just taken it around to the Bribie Island Bridge. This had been not a bad spot to fish although the size around here is always an issue. Mrs H and I had a good early morning fish the week before and had managed to get home after fishing early enough in the day so as not disrupt other planned activities.

 This weekend we had invited the girls, “Harley” and “Vegeo” to go fishing with us. The dawn was another lovely one in Queensland although the winds threaten to get up later. We worked as a team when putting the boat in and our precision reminded me of a well-oiled machine, we were soon slowly moving out of the boat harbour and turning right to the bridge.

 Talking of well-oiled machines, father had re-filled the petrol tank the previous day and he had been a little heavy handed on the two-stroke oil. When I started the outboard motor there had been a cloud of smoke that hung around in a blue haze just above us. I had taken note that there was a possibility of oiling up the spark plug later and this could make the boat difficult to start later.

 The bridge was quite close to the marina, only about a kilometre away, we were chatting freely with the normal high expectations you have prior to a fishing trip. We did the usual thing and placed the boat below the incoming tide so it drifted towards the bridge this allowed us to work on fishing close to the pillars on the seaward side. I had been told that you should fish by the seventh pillar of the bridge on the mainland side of the channel.  I am not sure to believe this or not but I always count the pillars to make sure I am not too far from that particular the spot.

 We started fishing using yabbies, this was the first time the girls had used yabbies and I found myself doing most of the hook baiting, these little nippy things are a little too icky for the girls. We started to have success almost immediately with good bites all round.

 We fished for an hour and caught some baby Snapper, baby snapper are sometimes called Red Bream in Australia, and Kirsty caught her first Flat Head. Nothing was of a decent size and we put them all back.

 Happy about the mornings fishing, we decided about eight o’clock to pack it in and go home for a good breakfast. We packed our rods up and I turned around and pulled the rope on the motor. I like to start the motor before I pull up the anchor, just in case the motor takes a moment or two to start. There was no response from the motor. I pulled the cord again, still no response. I keep on pulling it, time after time. There was no result. I tried pulling the choke out, I tried winding the idle up and down, I tried pushing the choke in and nothing seemed to work. I had visions of that spark plug oiled up after that cloud of smoke when we pushed off, but wasn’t panicking yet.

 Even on the anchor with the tide coming in we were very slowly drifting towards the bridge pillars, Still about 10 meters away, but we were a little close for comfort. I never feel really good when the motor doesn’t start first time. Harley and I had a technical talk, and decided the motor might be flooded from all the “choke in” and “choke out” stuff I did.

We were sure we could smell petrol and that was always a sure sign we had flooded the motor. I decided to give it another ten minutes and try again. I did that and tried again and the result was the same, except we were now even closer to the bridge.

Not sure whether I had a problem with flooded motor or the plug oiling up, I decided the best way to cure both would be to pull the spark plug out and clean it up. I fished around in my box of “things you might need” to get a screwdriver and a plug spanner. I leaned right over the back of the boat to unclip the motor cover so I could start work. Damn I remembered that the cover catch was broken, I had broken it nearly a year ago and never gotten around to fixing it. This mean I would have to pull the whole catch mechanism apart to open the motor before pulling the plug. I started to attack it with a screwdriver, fortunately I did not have much luck and shortly after starting I decided this was too hard and gave up trying to be a mechanic .

The time was quarter to nine, I decided to leave it until nine o’clock and then try again. At five past nine I tried again, the same result. My arm was tired, Harley had tried and her arm was tired, I wasn’t sure if the choke should be in or out and the idle should up high or low. We were stuck.

 We took the decision to paddle home, now that kilometre looked an awfully long kilometre and I swear the wind got up a little just to make it more difficult. We had never had to use the paddles in anger before and so this was going to be an interesting exercise.

 We unshipped the paddles, and Harley and I did the paddling from the rear of the boat. The boat went relatively quickly but the shore looked a very long way away. We decided to paddle into the shore and then paddle around close to the beach on our way to the marina and boat ramp. This was a longer distance than right across the bay to the channel marks, but it would make everyone feel better.

 We had paddled no more than a hundred yards, when two gents turned up in front of us in a similar size boat to ours. They offered to tow us back to the marina. We accepted and soon we were heading back to the marina under the tow of fellow fishermen.

 We thanked them for their help and they headed back out to catch those elusive big ones that we had left them while we packed the boat on the trailer and headed home.

 I had the boat already booked in to the mechanics on Monday for an annual tune up and check; now there was really something to fix. When I got it back from the mechanic, he told me the power pack had broken. I nodded knowingly, and asked if it happened often. He said no it was quite rare and he could not give me a reason why it had broken.

 He gave me back the old power pack; I am not sure what for. I suspect it was by way of an apology for the outrageous price he charged me for the new one. It turns out a power pack is a black box with lots of wires hanging out of it. I thought it might be when he first told me it was broken; you see I have a fair amount of mechanical know how. I was also grateful that we did not own a much bigger motor. The mechanic had pointed to the boat next to me and told me his power pack had broken to and it had cost that bloke five times more. Sometimes you just thank your lucky stars.