I was just wondering what should be done when a small outboard 2 stroke
engine is submerged in fresh water for less than 5 minutes?

This happened on the weekend and the first thing we did was to remove
the spark plug, cycle the engine maybe 50 times with the pull start
until no water was coming out of the spark plug hole. Very little water
came out anyway. After about 2 hours the engine managed to start, but we
were told that you shouldn't start the engine and that it should be
serviced immediately. I would have thought that if the engine could be
started as soon as possible that it would heat up and dry out any
remaining water.

I would think that all service manuals would say to take it in for a
service straight away as that means extra money for the engine maker,
but, is a service really required for an engine if it spent so little
time submerged and actually started shortly afterwards? Surely outboard
engines would have some design factor built it to minimise water damage
since submersion must happen a little bit?