From the nation of Drake and Nelson

Seamanship at its hardiest.

From 1977-1979 we lived in Bangladesh. The people of Bengal navigate their waterways in dhows whose design hasn't changed much in the last couple of thousand years. The time was plainly nigh, thought an entrepreneur from a large federal republic across the Atlantic, for them all to swap their dhows for 15-foot aluminium canoes that he would sell them.

Strangely the expected market never materialised and a lot of unwanted 15-foot aluminium canoes were suddenly going cheap on the market. One of them was bought by a countryman of the entrepreneur who, in the custom of his people, decided he should put the biggest, baddest, melonfarming outboard he could find on the stern. As the canoe proved difficult to operate when it was pointing nearly straight up at the sky, he too sold it on. Finally it reached my father, who put a small little 2-stroke outboard on and, guess what, it worked perfectly well. Or, of course, you can just paddle.

Thus we have had a 15-foot aluminium canoe since 1979, ideal for outings on the Kennet & Avon canal -- and indeed anywhere else with sufficient depth (about 2 inches), but it's the Kennet & Avon that gets most of our custom. My father and I once paddled/walked the canoe up from Pewsey to Reading, spending two nights beneath its upturned hull - this was in the pre-restoration days when the canal was part waterway, part muddy trench. This week's outing was less adventurous but no less memorable - the first time it's just been the three of us, and the first time I've been in charge and haven't dropped the engine in the canal. (In other words, the second time I've been in charge in total.) Voices were only occasionally raised and rattiness was kept to a bare minimum. In nautical terms, that means a good day out.