Shanoss
17-02-2007, 08:54 AM
I'm curious to hear about the times when it all went bad. I've had a few, but only bad enough that i can laugh about them now.
Christmas day 03. Me and a mate took his new 6.5 plate Black Arrow for a trip down to the South Alligator out of Darwin. Now the tides up that way are pretty big and the south Alligator is a big river at high tide. Low tide and the boat ramp is out of the water as it was when we arrived. My smart mate decided that he should unhook the boat at the top of the ramp and have me reverse it down quickly hoping that the boat would fly the remaining distance to the water after i had thrown out the anchors. I suggested that this his idea crap and maybe we should just wait for a bit more water to arrive. his boat, his car his rules. Well we waited for the water alright, and we had to wait longer than we should have because his boat was sitting on the ramp sans trailer about halfway down. We finally get the thing floated and head off to the mouth of the river for a bit of a fish. Nada, Zip, bugger all is what we caught. No bait fish about, no Crocs, no nothing. Time to go home. about 3 k's from the ramp, top of the tide but falling fast, we encounter a mud bank smack bang in the middle of the river. Within a minute we had 10 metres of mud all around us. How big is the next tide i immediately wonder? 12 hours we sat on that mud bank. There was one golden moment though, that was when the minute between the flys dissapearing and the mossies arriving. We finally get the boat on the trailer and head for home only to find that the petrol station we were going to refuel at opens a bit late on boxing day. quite a bit late. Worst trip of my life, but can definately laugh about now
Christmas day 03. Me and a mate took his new 6.5 plate Black Arrow for a trip down to the South Alligator out of Darwin. Now the tides up that way are pretty big and the south Alligator is a big river at high tide. Low tide and the boat ramp is out of the water as it was when we arrived. My smart mate decided that he should unhook the boat at the top of the ramp and have me reverse it down quickly hoping that the boat would fly the remaining distance to the water after i had thrown out the anchors. I suggested that this his idea crap and maybe we should just wait for a bit more water to arrive. his boat, his car his rules. Well we waited for the water alright, and we had to wait longer than we should have because his boat was sitting on the ramp sans trailer about halfway down. We finally get the thing floated and head off to the mouth of the river for a bit of a fish. Nada, Zip, bugger all is what we caught. No bait fish about, no Crocs, no nothing. Time to go home. about 3 k's from the ramp, top of the tide but falling fast, we encounter a mud bank smack bang in the middle of the river. Within a minute we had 10 metres of mud all around us. How big is the next tide i immediately wonder? 12 hours we sat on that mud bank. There was one golden moment though, that was when the minute between the flys dissapearing and the mossies arriving. We finally get the boat on the trailer and head for home only to find that the petrol station we were going to refuel at opens a bit late on boxing day. quite a bit late. Worst trip of my life, but can definately laugh about now