What one might think would be a routine fishing trip can take unexpected turns. George went out with Dick, his usual fishing partner, and when they were about 10 miles east of shore in the Bering Sea, the motor on the boat quit! Then began one of those humorous stories told on the high seas.
It was decided by mutual accord amongst the three men present, George, Dick and Lynn, that it sounded like the solenoid was not working properly. Dick determined that if he banged on it with a hammer he had on board, perhaps it would start working again. So he got by the motor and started tapping and banging in all the "right" places. Meanwhile, he asked Lynne to stand by and attempt to restart the motor. After much tapping, the motor caught on the first try! The boat was running again. . .so. . .Lynn shut the motor off! His comment was, "Seems to be working fine now!"
The question, of course, was--would they get it started again? Of course it wouldn't just start, so they resorted to their old proven motor-starting procedure, but this time it didn't work. After much banging and tapping and failure to start after numerous attempts, Dick got discouraged and hailed another salmon fishing boat nearby and asked if they could tow him back to shore when they went. They agreed, but said they had another hour or two to catch their limit of red salmon. So the men waited. George decided that, with nothing else to do, continued tapping on the solenoid might be productive. So he'd tap, rest, tap, etc. A half hour later, Dick tried the motor once more and--it started right up again. Strict instructions were given not to turn it off again!
So they continued to fish with the motor running. George caught an 18 pound cod, the biggest Dick had ever caught on the boat, and they caught several halibut--so it turned out to be an OK fishing trip after all.
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