(Peter wrote) On Saturday I had to get up very early for the mini bus to collect me for what was expected to be a great day of fishing around the very picturesque Cham Island.

I was duly collected at 7.30am, and about 30 minutes later the other 13 people who had been collected from various hotels were crammed into our 11 seater minibus and were speeding madly to the Hoi An wharf where my fishing trip was to depart from.

As it turned out a huge number of other tours departed from this location, but after a few chaotic minutes our guide eventually got his group of around 60 loaded onto the fast speed boats for our short trip to Cham Island.

At this point I was starting to get a little nervous about to huge numbers of people all heading in the same direction and was wondering just how many others would also be participating in my fishing tour!

As it turned out my initial fears were ill founded! On arrival at Charm Island I was immediately singled out by the guide and escorted to the awaiting motorbike and rider for my little ride around the port to the fishing boat. I can only assume that I looked pretty impressive on the back of the motorbike judging by the many comments and waves I received on this short trip.

Still I was pretty happy as I believed my quick pick up would give me the best chance to check out the best fishing spots on the boat and to get hold of the best fishing gear before all others!

Then things started to go down hill just a little. On arrival I met the captain, who could not speak a word of English, and was introduced to his very fine fishing vessel. I also realised that I was the only person on this tour and that our fishing gear consisted of a couple of hand lines on sticks.

Still we were here to catch fish and we were soon underway and no doubt heading for his secret fishing spot where there were all manner of big fish just waiting to be caught.

After a few minutes the smoke from the old diesel motor (hand cranked to start) had cleared and I busied myself untangling the birds-nest of line from the spool that I had been given.

After a short trip we arrived at his secret spot and at the end of the first hour of intense fishing the captain and I had landed one each. Both fish were about 4 inches long and both were kept for what I really hoped was not going to be our lunch.

The captain was a really friendly fellow, and although we couldn't understand a word of what the other was saying, we found that regularly toasting each other (banging cans together) with our second, third and fourth cans of beer made things just that little bit easier.

Then however, something strange happened and I really thought my friend the captain had really cracked it. His phone rang and he became really animated. He then jumped up, pulled up both anchors, cranked the motor over and we were heading back to port and it was only 10.15.

But strange things do happen in Vietnam! On arrival back at the port we were greeted by his wife who was laden with all manner of food which was loaded into the boat. To my absolute shock it also became obvious to me that the four young and very attractive Vietnamese girls with her were also going to join us for the remainder of our trip. This certainly did change things a little and in no time at all my four new friends and I were snorkelling above a lovely area of coral. As these girls were 22 year old university students, it was also great that their English was excellent.

Meanwhile..... The captain's wife had fired up the cooking pot on the rear of the boat and had commenced cooking up a seafood extravaganza! Throughout the next couple of hours we were all treated to an array of seafood such as giant prawn skewers, calamari that just melted in your mouth, mussels, oysters, fish, rice soup, sea urchin and live molluscs from conical shells. The fact that I could now communicate with the captain and his wife just made the day even better.

While the fishing trip turned out to be a bit of a non event, this was perhaps one of the best tours that I have been on.