Teddy is our boat, named after my best friend, who sadly passed last Christmas. He is very much missed by us all. Ted was fun, a delight to know, and travel with, sometimes a little temperamental, first thing, as his enthusiasm to get going sometimes overran him. Ted loved the water; he was the best angler I will ever know, he couldn’t swim, but how we messed around in boats and had so much fun.
So very obviously our boat is called Teddy, like Teddy the outboard seem a little temperamental first thing. It was Ted’s outboard, he often asked me if I wanted it, and I was always too polite to say yes, but as he moved recently, I borrowed it to save some space in his already crowded downsized garage. Well, it sits on the back of our boat now. It is a Yamaha 2hp, which as any outboard nerd will know is the rock solid, go forever, outboard; not that it sounds that it will go forever, it clanks as it poodles along, it needs petrol every 40 minutes, and it’s always a relief, but never a surprise when it starts and then gets us there and back.
The boat is a Sevylor 360, meaning it’s 3.6m long. It’s an inflatable and was bought second hand for a song. It was just too big to be a tender for the previous owner, and for me it was a bargain, for which I would find an eventual use. It’s not a toy boat, neither is a cheap boat. It’s the nearest we will get to a RIB, which would be impracticable to travel with, ours deflates and rolls up into a not so small ball, which just squeezes into the roof box, with the snorkelling gear and armbands and the lifejackets.
Along with the boat and its outboard motor, we also managed to procure an anchor (or three). All were bought through our local selling sites, the first anchor was great, if a little heavy, but that’s what anchors are. Having seen one the algorithms of the selling site presented me with yet more bargain anchors for sale. We went to see one locally, which was advertised for a song, and when we arrived to inspect were presented with a choice of two, for only two songs. Not wanting to miss bargains we took them both. One of the anchors, the “fold up” one has come with us and being attached to 10 foot of chain and 30 foot of rope it certainly does the job.
One day we will go fishing in Teddy, – soon, I hope. When we were in Marbella, we had the idea to launch the boat and cruise up and down the coastline dolphin spotting, and trolling for tuna, but the Marbella / Africa channel is a drug route, and inflatables were often abandoned, having served their transporting purpose, maybe exchanging cargo close to shore so we decided not to risk being mistaken for anything but an innocent land based tourist, by the ever present police gunboats.
Now we are in Croatia, it’s a completely different kettle to fish in. So far, we haven’t but we have plenty of time to find those monstrous shoals of bass, bream and dorado, which must be there somewhere. The fact that it’s crystal-clear azure water, there’s fishing boats everywhere and the largest flock of fish-eating seagulls in the world sits not 50 meters offshore means we may search in vain, but we will try our best.
We may try anchoring up, and using our snorkeling gear to find them, alas this again has not yet been attempted as the exceptionally clear water is also exceptionally cold in March , but as soon as it is warm enough , over the side I will go.
What the boat is good for is getting to the bars in bays. We have so far only found a couple where we can step ashore onto a dry pontoon, which makes the experience somewhat civilised, so with no wet feet, just a wet patch on our bums, lifejackets over our shoulder we march to the bar, celebrate our arrival, and after an hour or so, return to Teddy and cross yet another bay in search of yet another pontoon, we need refilling every 40 minutes or so it seems. It’s a sort of economy version of island hopping which perversely we will do by car.
We enjoy our booze cruises, Stella sits in the middle of the boat, Blanche at the anchor or bow end, and me at the stern, trimming the outboard, setting our course and generally thinking how life is good and fun with Teddy still around us.
