The Easter break showcased East Lothian as a quiet green paradise worth getting to know.

My home town of North Berwick (NB) was mobbed by visitors with a continental flavour as young Europeans interns/students came to visit.

Beaches were popular, boats put on extra trips, ice cream was slurped by the tankerful and queues were out the chippy door well into evening.

But, as with any sunny day, parking was a problem and even blue lights couldn’t get along the double-parked sea front. Although East Lothian Council has budgeted to improve several car parks, the only solution to more visitors is a park-and-ride and more train use. In either case, even more thousands of pedestrians will be looking for things to do.

Given Seahouses in Northumberland already runs over a dozen boats to the Farnes (none of which islands are as teeming or as spectacular as Bass Rock) there is still potential at NB Harbour. And a glance at a map shows one attraction unaddressed – Fife lies no further than trips already going from NB to the Isle of May.

The idea of a ferry was floated for the Millennium to celebration a 1,000-year anniversary of the Pilgrim Ferry. Unfortunately, Heritage Lottery did not consider it a capital investment and declined. An experiment by the Seabird Centre around 2004 also sputtered and stopped after a couple of RIB (rigid inflatable boat) trips.

But making a ferry work requires long-term preparation and promotion ahead of the season. It needs a boat fast enough to cover 11 miles in 30 to 45 minutes and big enough to take several dozen people in all but severe weather. It also needs back-up i.e. enough transport to return passengers by road if heavy seas spring up unexpectedly.

But the boat need not be a dedicated ferry. Now that Galloway’s Pier is fully functional, it could leave at all states of the tide (say 9am), land them at Anstruther (whose harbour can be accessed at all tide states) then bring a return load to land at NB before 11am. Either way, it saves a two-hour, 80-mile trip. Golfers might find it useful.

Both groups would then have the day to explore their respective shores, while the boat would be available for local trips from NB before taking the Fife visitors back at, say, 4pm and bringing the visitors over there back for 6pm. Edinburgh people can visit the East Neuk without cars and Fife visitors can have an outing to East Lothian.

As my fisherman grandad used to say: “Goodbye Scotland, I’m off to Fife.”