I have lotz of experience fishing (too)small craft, I used to fish salmon in a 8 foot 'whaler' with a 6 hp motor. I would regularly go out 3+ miles offshore, from carp up to well past Hendreys beach.

One saturday, the birds were working BIGTIME, about a mile and a half off Hendreys, it was 3pm, and the Tyson fight was on at 7, so I wanted to zip out there, fish a little and zip back. It was dead calm, and as I got to within a half mile of the 2 acre birdpile, something went wrong with the throttle.

I could not get the motor to do anything more than idle. I was right there, almost withing distance of the fish, and I could not get the boat to move faster than about 1.5 knots.

Luckily, the wind did not come up, and I ended up catching one barrie, then turning towards the harbor, and idling back.

At one point, a boat passed me, about a half hour before the sun went down, and I really should have waved them down for a tow, but my pride got in the way, and I just putted along, watching old people walk along shoreline drive faster than I was going, I would sit on the bow and paddle with the one paddle i had.

Long story short, I made a few mistakes that could have had serious consequences.

1) No radio, cell phone, flare or other signaling device
2) No secondary means of propulsion, ie Oars (2) kicker motor....
3) Not signaling the boater for a tow

Action I did take that may have mitigated any complications that came up:

1) Stopped fishing immediatly when something came up.
2) Headed straight towards the beach, then turned towards the harbor. Should the offshore winds have come up, I would have been in serious trouble.

When I go out on a little boat now, I throw my wetsuit in the boat. Most the time I have it anyway, as I dive a lot now, but having a wetsuit as a piece of safety equiptment is so easy to have, but most don't think about it. More than a few commercial fishermen and divers have survived a night at sea, or sitting on their overturned hull by wearing wetsuits. When conditions worsen, dont wait to grab your suit and don it, by the time you wish you had, it may be too hectic for you to stop navigating and put on the suit.

Let people know where you are headed, a general game plan so that someone can know where to start looking.

Meet some other boaters in the area. I have a half dozen friends that I can call who can come out and drag me home, or start looking for me. Get their cellphone numbers, have them handy.

LEARN ABOUT MOTORS, many times, you can fix a problem at sea, at least enough to limp in safely. Get to know a marine mechanic, get his cell phone and get to know him well enough so you can call him when you are at sea for a quick fix. If you need to meet a Marine Mechanic in SB, my new roomate is one. Email me and I can introduce you to him.

All for now, I hope you think about these things when fishing out further than you are able to swim in, and that means past the bouys should wind or current pick up.

MoonDoggie,
Marco Farrell
Santa Barbara
have2fish@yahoo.com
PS. It ended up that I sheared a pin in the throttle, but I could have controled the throttle manually on the motor.