North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Last weekend I decided to head to the Adelaide river for a play. I spent several hours getting the boat sorted for an overnighter. I had both batteries on the charger all week and the engine fired up beautifully on Friday night.
I turnd the electrical system off and packed up for the night

Anyway, on arrival at the ramp, I got my deckie to shoot me into the water but when I tried to start the motor, just click click. Bummer, might be a loose connection. Checked again but nothing.
in hindsight i should have retrieved the boat and worked on it on dry land but there was a line up waiting to get in.

The jumping croc people were on their jetty and shouted at everyone who even came close to the jetty to move on.

By this time, I had the electric motor working but was just making way against the current. I asked the croc girl if I could use the jetty because I was in distress. She said ‘it will cost you $40’ and I said ok ill pay. It would have made it much easier to tie up and swap over batteries
Then she changed her mind and said no.

So I moved slowly up to an overhanging branch and tied off while I threw the painter line (15m) to my deckie who was still on the shore.
I then moved back a couple of m downstream from the ramp and got tied off. The river bank looked ok with a lot of gravel on the surface. I had a 2m piece of 6x1 timber on board so I laid that on the bank and slipped gracefully over the side and onto the timber decking.

It all went downhill from there. i slowly sunk up to my guts (i knew it would come in handy one day) in stinking mud and only a couple of m from the waters edge,
I tried to extract one leg and then the other but kept sinking back down. thinking al the time that i was now in the poop and hoped that a didnt move in on me

So I decided to lay on my guts and crawl up the bank. Still no good as I couldn’t get any purchase on the mud and just scooped handfuls of mud without gong anywhere.

Eventually I extracted my legs and rolled over to my arse and shimmied up about 6” at a time til I reached the top with a lot of help from my deckie.

Many scenarios went thru my little mind while I was in a vulnerable position.

Anyway, I got my spare battery from the car and dropped that into the boat but that too wouldn’t start the boat. Both batteries showed 10.4v. the aux car battery should have been fully charged but there was a bad connection at the main fuse in the car.
So I offloaded my deckie onto another boat, loaded my boat back on the trailer and dragged my sorry arse boat back to town.
Took the car to the installer and he chased it back to find the fault and fixed it in 15mins.
New battery in the boat and all good but 2 days late.

My biggest mistake was not just pulling back into the ramp, hooking up and working on dry land.
following closely behind in the major error in judgement stakes was trying to climb up the bank.

So if anyone has an auxiliary battery system, just check the connections regularly as they do come loose.

so the moral of the story is to not rush to conclusions and think things thru.
i hope my mishap might help others out

Did anyone get pics. Or did greenpeace show up to refloat the whale.?

Sorry mate , that's scary shiiit . Glad your around to tell the story.

Now go buy some Lotto tickets.

No harm done, still have all your limbs!

At least you didn't drive three hours to get there hey?!

Cheers

Wow, that would have been scarey !!

jeffish wrote:r did greenpeace show up to refloat the whale.?

oh wait a minute, i mean

Lol lucky by the sounds of it

Got a new boat now, shouldn't have that problem

Crikey!

I had just launched my boat and seen it all unfold. I couldn't do much to help so I did what any top bloke would do, cracked a beer, pulled a camera out and watch it all unfold.

It was looking pretty grim at first



I was fearing the worst



But the more he wiggled and rolled the more progess he made




And before long he was out



After sitting down and catching his breath he seen the funny side of things and gave me a wave




Haha sorry mark, dosnt sound fun at the time, funny as now tho. Maybe next time you go fishing you could take 2 tennis rackets incase you get cought out again.

Hey mate, glad to hear it ended well and your safe.....
But thats fooked the croc people said that about using the jetty etc....
Those actions led to further risk etc... Not good.

Yeah, I thought it was poor form by the jumping croc people too. Funny story because you can laugh about it now. Could have been much different. You would have had mud from arsehole to breakfast (Not a reference about one our much loved members)

I did look just like that elephant. I actually felt like it as well.
I think im still 10 feet tall and bullet proof but my body tells a very different story these days.
As soon as i started sinking, i knew i had done the wrong thing.
All could have been avoided if i used my brain.
any it makes for a good story.
Main reason for the post was an effort to get others to use thier heads.
love those photos

Please give me a call Nomad. I want you to explain in detail what happened with the Jumping Croc lady. Her refusing you access to the jetty when you were clearly in distress was highly irresponsible and the $40 to use the jetty was ridiculous. I am happy to give them a call and ask why the did not render assistance. I've also got a few media contacts I can call to make sure in future they render appropriate assistance to any boat in distress.

Great response Tristan. Such poor form on there part, blatant money grabbing
mongral act. I bet the money would have went straight in the pocket.!!!!
I wont be sending any business their way thats for sure

tristan.sloan wrote:Please give me a call Nomad. I want you to explain in detail what happened with the Jumping Croc lady. Her refusing you access to the jetty when you were clearly in distress was highly irresponsible and the $40 to use the jetty was ridiculous. I am happy to give them a call and ask why the did not render assistance. I've also got a few media contacts I can call to make sure in future they render appropriate assistance to any boat in distress.

Marine branch and authorities are the one Nomad should contact regarding any problems with his vessel & distress situation.. (If nomad feels its warranted that is?)

Afant sticking their beak in and mentioning getting the media involved wont be good for anyone.

Good to see AFANT being proactive and using the power of the media

No doubt the croc company will be given a chance to put its side of the story.