See that picture up there? Of my 1989 Ford F-150 known as The Marshal? Well, earlier today, that picture saved my ass, or at least saved my ass, and my kid’s ass, from an experience that could have been a massive pain in those aforementioned asses. I should probably explain.
So, Otto and I have been enjoying taking my extremely shitty canoe, the HMS Terror, on little excursions to try and discover new species of amphibious rabbits, or something. I also recently got a little trolling motor for it so we can now venture further and faster. So, that’s what we decided to do late-ish this afternoon, and to add to the excitement we went to a new location, this time part of the Eno river.
Normally we go to a lake; the Eno was a somewhat different experience, a bit more mysterious and engaging, with more wildlife (including herons that Otto repeatedly called “heroins” much to my delight) and, of course, charmingly pudgy frogs:
We put him back, by the way, he’s fine. He just looks grumpy.
Anyway, we were enjoying exploring around, everything was lush and verdant and overgrown, feeling a bit Apocalypse Now-ish, and eventually we felt like we had enough, so we decided to turn back.
And that’s where the problem began. The Eno is a bit labyrinthine, and meanders and weaves like a drunk on a hoverboard. Plus, it all looks pretty much the same? For example, here’s Otto and I at one point:
…and here’s Otto’s back at another point a good ways away:
What I’m saying is I got kinda lost. And we wanted to get back. And it was after 6 pm, and I really didn’t want to be out there trying to find my way back in the dark. Also, I was too stupid to drop a pin or something when I parked, so when I looked at the map on my phone, I wasn’t even really sure where to go. It wasn’t great.
Then I remembered that picture up there. Pictures all get stamped with location information! I checked the location info of the picture, confirmed I just puttered a good way in precisely the wrong direction, corrected course, and headed back.
Even with the little motor at its maximum speed of Warp 5 (the controls go from 1-5, I assume the word “warp” is what you say there. Also, that’s about 3-4 mph) it took us a good while to get back – I guess we’d covered several miles – and by the time we returned the car battery that powered the motor still read 19%! Not too bad!
Anyway, the moral here is that don’t feel embarrassed to take random pictures of you car, just because you feel like it. They may save your ass one day.
A great suggestion the story i was expecting better. Cops, FBI, DRUGS, but remember to learn the rules you pop a motor you need a boat license
I haven’t had navigation issues with our kayaks, the lakes have good visibility so can see a nearby mountain and rivers are pretty simple.
I did get a navigation challenge in early June on the Zumwalt Prairie where the trail was lightly used and hard to find. I ended up using my Silva Ranger compass to take bearings on the trail markers and followed a compass course.
Man, I’m zero-for-two on boat attempts this year.
First attempt: Fly out to the northeast for the Oppo Rally. Too much water. Garbage rain on and off the whole time.
Second attempt: Went to Colorado Bend down here. Not enough water. Grass is now growing where water should be from being out of the water for so long, and the end of the former boat ramp is a few car lengths out of the water. It’s really sad.
I guess I need to just go back to Town Lake and fart around downtown. Maybe I can see the goats they’re using to clean up unwanted plants along the trail.
Google/Android used (~10 years ago) to automatically keep track of where you parked.
Looking at the directions now it wants you to manually tell it to remember where you parked, which defeats the whole purpose of carrying a supercomputer in your pocket.
If you mapped your way to your parking destination, it’ll save that to your navigation history by default, which is good to find your way back to the garage, or at least the general area you arrived in before trying to find parking.
Am I the only one wondering what the dolly is for? Are you and Otto climbing in at the top of the boat launch and letting gravity take over?
Those canoes can weigh about 80 pounds which can be a pain to drag around, particularly with the help of a youth. Moving it with a dolly helps a lot.
PSA – I do not believe the HMS Terror is safe to take to the Titanic.
Hmm it seems to me it took around 175 years to find the last HMS Terror
I dig the octopus on the HMS Terror.
As far as I’m aware, the Marshal is the only actual award-winning vehicle you own, so it doesn’t surprise me that you’re inspired to take photos of it.
Breathlessly awaiting your upcoming article on frog taillights.
I hear they’re waterproof.
Froglights was right there . . .
Deliverance made me think of Burt Reynolds who was the star of The Longest Yard in which he drove a Citroen Maserati into the water which was tragic but shows the circle of life. At least that’s how my brain interpreted this almost tragic canoe story.
They once simplified movie descriptions in our local paper, Deliverance was ‘
men on canoe trip have difficulties’ to me that means a leak or losing a paddle not what happened
On Designing Women Suzanne Sugarbaker didn’t want to go camping. “Just ask Mr. Ned Beatty if he likes camping in Georgia!”
Ah, yes, always a good idea to take pictures (especially with geo location turned on, as already pointed out.) Here’s kind of a convoluted anecdote about a family friend who traveled frequently for work and was also an avid fan of the local university’s football team so he would follow them on the road, either by driving or flying. Once, many years ago, for work he took a flight where once he had completed his work he met some friends & rented a car to go to a football game in a different city; afterwards, he had to fly to another city for work where he also met friends & rented another car to go to another football game & then also had to fly to yet another city for work; he repeated this routine for about a month where he came back to his hometown at one point. The end result was that once he’d finished his business & his football game attendance criss-crossing the region he realized he couldn’t remember at which airport he had parked his car. Taking a geo-located picture would’ve been mighty helpful… this was years before cellphones were even a thing. As I left for college before I could find out the resolution of that story, for all I know his car is still out there in some random airport long-term parking lot…
Well let me tell you of a story ‘bout a man named Charlie who had traveled on many a plane,
When he finished his journeys, he headed back where he’d started, but he’d forgotten the airport’s name.
Now his car’s lost in parking ‘cause he never remembered,
It’s collecting dust out there in Long Term.
He may search forever in the lots for his lost one,
It’s the car that never returned.
I’m reading this as the Dropkick Murphy’s version.
Ha! That or The Fools. Love that dirty water.
Is that banjo music I hear?
Sometimes I wonder how you remember to wipe yourself Chainsaw Boy…At least Otto is wearing a life jacket.
The frog just looks pissed because he is, your reputation preceeds you. Even in nature.
I use a bidet.
Touche’ my paper saving comrade.
NO touche’!
Ha! Think you’re clever, eh? Let’s see you wipe that smile off your face with a bidet.
At least head upstream when unfamiliar, no prep. madness so the current will bring you back when made in china motor quits.
Yup, always do the hard sail, paddle in this case, first. So sail up wind or paddle up stream. Then when it’s late and you’re tired you’ve got the fun and easy to end on.
Good thinking on the picture though.
Back before cell phones, I got lost deer hunting with some buddies. Our usual help method (fire a quick 3 shots and wait for a friend to fire a single shot) didn’t work. I ended up walking about 20 miles and hitching a ride with some other hunters. They didn’t even same me any dinner. I bought a GPS system after that LOL
Now almost all cell phones have it built-in.
Of course that method works better if you are not bow hunting…….
JT, Otto has his life preserver on, where is yours?
you are too valuable to society to not wear it.
Do as I say, not as I do.
The mantra of every parent. Take your complementary hood ornament for the COTD.
as a parent, especially with the F-bombs and alcoholism
NC law mandates all children under 13 wear a life vest on a boat underway, unless they are below deck or enclosed cabin.
This seems like the counterpart story to Adrian’s “No, I can prove these are my pasties that I brought from home…they’re not the hospital’s!”
Earlier this year I was on a mountain bike holiday, rented a cabin in a forest with some good trails and spent the days riding around.
I met a guy in the woods who was on a bike and lost. He asked me for directions to the car park, and I said “which one? There are maybe five.”
He didn’t know.
Now I was alone in the woods with a phone, a map, a back up battery for my phone, an app tracking me so my fiancée can tell if I’m dead, food, water and a first aid kit. He was just alone, and a moron. He’d started following a trail (one I knew was a 30 mile loop) but then got distracted.
I explained it was a loop, and depending on where he started it could be 29.999 miles to get back to where he started, which he said he understood, then I took him to the trail and set him free.
Exploring is fun, but you have to know where you start from so you can get back there.
Always take mental notes of distinctive features of the landscape along the way.
This seems to be a binary thing. Some humans seem to do what you described almost instinctively. Others I know are almost oblivious and can’t find their way out of a 7-11 without signs. It’s almost like color blindness, except with surroundings.
And some humans stand in doorways.
I say let these types get lost.
I realize I’m preaching to the choir here, but I’ll opine anyway. Gaia GPS mapping works with any smart device and doesn’t depend on a cell signal to operate. We use Gaia to plan trips. At trailheads, we turn on Gaia’s breadcrumbs to see where we’ve been and where to return. Highest rating for Gaia once you climb its learning curve.
In areas without cell signal, which is almost everywhere Mrs. OverlandingSprinter and I go, we bought a Zoleo Satellite Communicator, which operates on the Iridium satellite network. You can send text messages through the Zoleo, or if you need search and rescue, you can send an SOS where your GPS coordinates are sent to the nearest search and rescue. Thankfully, we haven’t needed the Zoleo yet, but it provides peace of mind.
I love herons. We’ve got the great blues around the property and I’ve seen them hunting chipmunks several times. They eat anything they think they can swallow. I’ve seen online that sometimes they’re wrong and choke to death. Not very smart, I guess, but beautiful and they make awesome, almost demonic noises during mating season or whatever reason they do that. Less of them this year, though, as the town took out the beavers and their dams, which turned the rookery island into a peninsula and we have a lot of damn coyotes (I’d love them if they ate the Canada geese, but if they do, it’s not nearly enough).
Can confirm the unearthly mating noises. My old house had a nesting pair in the creek out back, and, holy cow, the noise they would make! Sounded like something only partly from this dimension being flayed alive. Any creature which found that sexy is not something I want to mess with.
This only works if you have geo location turned on on your photos! 😛
Dude, that’s a toad. Gotta learn the wildlife, or you might just get towed.
Would have been shocked if nobody said this already.
LOL, clever
Thank you for posting this so I did not have to.
When in doubt, get the ‘Seek’ app which will identify just about any animal or plant using your phone’s camera.
Shows what you know. That’s Pete Hogwallop after gettin’ loved up a little.
“We. Thought. You. Was. A. Toad!”
“Whut?”
I usually take pictures when parking in garages, that has saved my butt a few times.
The scary yet helpful “You car parked here” messages on my phone also help. Need to know where my kid is at, ie wife bringing her home, find my iphone.
dude no kidding, after a couple nightmare wanderings I do the same
Even better, one time after plodding around the airport garage forever, I called the security office. They had a picture of my plate and told me where I parked in seconds!
Yay for our corporate overlords tracking our every move! /s, but halfway serious since it saved your tails this time.
Also, if you are serious about going further with that outboard, a LiFePO4 battery would be worth looking into. Deep cycle lead acid batteries don’t like being discharged more than 50% on the regular. Doing so dramatically shortens their lifespan. A lithium iron phosphate battery doesn’t care as long as it’s not below zero. Now it does care about charging voltage, which is slightly higher than lead acid.
Lastly, West Systems makes an aluminum boat leak sealing kit with their awesome G-Flex epoxy. That stuff is amazing.
Also, replacing the resistance stepped throttle with a pulse width modulator, though to maintain the self contained packaging, it will probably end up looking a little janky. I converted mine to remote controls (sit inside kayak, so I had to) and that was just part of the design. The kayak is a little more efficient than the canoe, but it will run way beyond my attention span on its lifepo battery. (Something like 28 or 40ah? I can’t remember now. I was going to build a 2nd, bigger battery and I think that was supposed to be 40 and the one I bought 28, but I’m not sure.)
Good point on checking if it’s PWM or resistance for speed control! Changing that for my camper’s roof fan cut the amp draw by 2/3 and gave fully variable speed control to boot.
I think he mentioned before that it’s a Minn Kota 30 or 35–whatever it is that’s the same as mine—and that’s resistance throttle, which is why it has 5 speed steps.
The increased efficiency is great and I also wanted the fine throttle control. Hits hull speed on flat water at 1/2-3/4 throttle, so there’s a little bit of reserve for wind and current. I think the Minn Kota 50 has a PWM installed, which I’d probably pick if doing another one, but figuring out the throttle linkage (180* rotation for the throttle vs 540* for the PWM dial) and return spring was fun and it sounds far more impressive than it was when describing it to normal people. Plus, Marvin the Martian’s voice saying “space modulator” kept running through my head.
Exactly, a Minn Kota 30.