By CHRIS AUSTIN
For The Beachcomber

Did I ever tell you about being stranded on a Pacific island? A genuine remote island off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

I am reminded of this harrowing experience because right on the bridge of my nose is a scar. It used to be quite noticeable, but the rest of my face has helpfully grown a lot of wrinkles, so it blends in.

I was visiting my brother, who for the past eight years had been a teacher in the South Pacific. Like any other visit to my brother, this one involved fishing. But instead of whiling away the hours on an idyllic Canadian lake or lazy Vermont river, we would be on the Pacific Ocean. This was worrisome because every boat my brother has ever owned could be classified as a maritime hazard.

His current boat and trailer ensemble did not disappoint. The trailer was the very definition of metal fatigue, but at least three of the four tires were inflated. And then there was the boat itself, named The Mahseer, which I assumed was Papuan for “Death at Sea.” However, in a break from tradition, this boat had two relatively modern outboard engines, a large one for getting from A to B and a small one for trolling.

So off we went, and after a long day on the water, I realized two things: There are a lot less fish in the sea than you’d think, and the equator is not a good place for a pasty white guy. As the sun became low in the sky, my brother reluctantly decided to go home. When he pressed the starter button, there was nothing,  just a terrifying silence. My brother looked at me and said, “Well, we still have the trolling motor.”

As we plodded along at an achingly slow pace, the land and water became one black blob. I was already making plans to mutiny when he spotted a pinprick of light in the distance. When we finally beached, we could hear singing and chanting. My brother hopped out and said, “Stay in the boat, sometimes the locals get massively drunk and hack up strangers.” Since he was a reservist for the local police, I figured he would know.

As he walked into the gloom, I realized I was well and truly stranded on an island. My growing panic lasted almost 15 minutes until a man showed up out of nowhere. He stopped and spoke quickly in a strange dialect. Not having understood a word, I replied just as quickly, “I am American and have many guns!” He politely smiled, nodded and walked away.

I took this as an act of aggression and set about trying to get the engine working. I figured if the small engine could be started with a pull-cord, so could the big one. I took off the engine cover to the trolling motor and noticed a pull-cord was connected to a thingy. Removing the cover on the big engine, I noticed it had a thingy too. All I needed to do was fashion a pull-cord for the big engine and save the day.

The cord part was easy to find, but I needed something to hook the cord to the thingy. I got on my hands and knees to wade through the detritus on the deck. There I found half a pair of pliers, a paperback book, some sort of bone and lots of beer bottle caps. After almost giving up, I found a thin, inch-long nut that would work perfectly.

Rigging it up, I gave a pull and heard a “chug, chug” from the engine. My eyes lit up, as I was thinking my Rube Goldberg apparatus might work. I pulled again and again, hearing the same hopeful sounds until on one particularly mighty yank, the cord broke and the nut hit me right between the eyes leaving a thin, inch-long cut.

I stared at the broken cord in my hand until I felt the warm blood and acute pain spreading over my face. I ran around in circles screaming because that always helps. Then I tried to find anything that wasn’t covered in fish slime to staunch the bleeding. I ended up using the middle pages from the paperback.

When my brother returned, I was sitting down with my head between my knees and chapter six on my nose. After explaining my situation, he gave me one of his standard answers, “Moron,” which is my brother’s way of saying, “I hope you are OK, and you’re a moron.”

Needless to say, we made it back, and a couple of days later he announced The Mahseer was seaworthy again. I asked him why the engine stopped running, and he said that it was something so obvious. It seems a thin, inch-long nut fell off the starter button.

— Chris Austin is the author of two books available at www.chrisaustinbooks.com. He also works at The Beachcomber.