On BBC TV's morning programme 'Breakfast' yesterday, a teenage girl was interviewed. I only ever watch morning television with half an eye but I soon realised that this girl's story was interesting, if only in its stupidity. You can see the account of her experience
here, but basically, seventeen year old Sammy and her friend, sixteen year old Tom were on holiday in Weston Super Mare (or Weston Mare, as she kept calling it in the interview) when they decided to go on a little sea trip. Not being the owners of a boat of any description, they spotted a couple of £4.99 children's inflatable dinghies in a nearby shop and bought those as an alternative. At no point did it occur to either of them that floating off in these might possibly not be the wisest thing to do. The article mentions that they used the dinghies' paddles, but on television, it looked as if Tom was using metal household shovels. (Yes, metal - think about it, Tom!)
Inevitably, they floated off away from Weston and eventually managed to come ashore at Brean. Even then they were apparently unfazed by their experience.
"Did you not ring for help as you had your mobile with you?" inquired the presenter.
"Nah, we just thought we could walk back. It was suppose to take about forty minutes, we were told."
Eventually, the realisation dawned on them that they were actually lost and at this point, they did indeed phone for help. Realisation must have taken quite a while though, as the seach for them lasted seven and a half hours.
"It's good to see a happy ending to an incident that could have been turned out a lot more serious. We would never recommend that people set sail in inflatable dinghies," was the coast guard's comment. I think I might have been inclined to put it a lot more forcefully than that.
And did I mention that Sammy had been carrying her mobile during this adventure? She had it with her during the interview too. I know this because the message tone went off at least three times and instead of switching it off, she was caught on camera surreptitiously texting back, mid-interview! Oh well, it's nice to know she appreciates the seriousness of it all.