River Photos, with "my boat and dogs".

The worst experience I've had without physical injury!!
After the first 2 hours stranded on that river, I was expecting to have a heart attack or stroke any minute.
The first warning was leaving the house going down dirt road and Getty chewing her strap loose ,jumping out the back of the pickup going 30mph and taking off down the road a mile away. She did run back to us.
This was nothing compared to the experience we were about go thru on the river.
After loading up the 4 dogs in the boat, got about a mile down the river, going over rapids we got stuck on a rock trying to miss a tree laying across the river from Hurricane Helene, lost battery power so now were floating down the river, with no control of the boat except Jake using the 15" pole we had to keep us off the banks and storm debris'.
We finally got hooked up to the dock of a rich widow with a vacation home who, we realized later, ignored the hell out of us. with me by this time standing up screaming for help me. Not a soul on that river to be seen yet, usually there are too many boats at times, yet always someone near by.
It was like we entered the Twilight Zone form hell!Now 3 hours into to this 'fun 'trip I'm losing it and yelling call 911 NOW while we still may have phone service!
4 hours now he calls 911,and I'm telling the cop we need help like 4 hours ago. The cop ask 'what part of the river, Like we knew.But at least I'm talking to a human.
He finds us by cell phone and tells us our location, I tell him I have no idea where that is.
After him calling other sources and telling me they don't do triver recues, call Wildlife or River management. I tell him our phone battery won't make unlimited calls and I 'm getting sick, or sicker.
The largest dog Maisie is now breathing in my face and the other one is jumping around barking, so I tell at them the shut up and get the heck off me.!
He connects us to Highway Patrol, who an officer just happened to be heading to our area, and I ask him if he could come get me, he said yes, and after walking up the steepest dock platform it was more like a slide than a platform so I'm taking one cautious step at a time hoping I don't slip or go backwards. I walk across the yard and there 2 HWP officers pulling in. I was totally out of breath from the climb by now and they looked like 2 angels.
We leave Jake and dogs ,and officer takes me to the house to get my van so I can load up the dogs and jake can save his boat which by now I don't ever want to see it or the river again.
We are down lots of winding dirt roads, and officer is telling me remember to turn here to left and there to right, I just agree still trying to come out of one of my worst anxiety attacks, hoping to see a sign of civilization soon.
For Jake it just gets worse on the river..........
 
Marie Mallory said:
The worst experience I've had without physical injury!!
After the first 2 hours stranded on that river, I was expecting to have a heart attack or stroke any minute.
The first warning was leaving the house going down dirt road and Getty chewing her strap loose ,jumping out the back of the pickup going 30mph and taking off down the road a mile away. She did run back to us.
This was nothing compared to the experience we were about go thru on the river.
After loading up the 4 dogs in the boat, got about a mile down the river, going over rapids we got stuck on a rock trying to miss a tree laying across the river from Hurricane Helene, lost battery power so now were floating down the river, with no control of the boat except Jake using the 15" pole we had to keep us off the banks and storm debris'.
We finally got hooked up to the dock of a rich widow with a vacation home who, we realized later, ignored the hell out of us. with me by this time standing up screaming for help me. Not a soul on that river to be seen yet, usually there are too many boats at times, yet always someone near by.
It was like we entered the Twilight Zone form hell!Now 3 hours into to this 'fun 'trip I'm losing it and yelling call 911 NOW while we still may have phone service!
4 hours now he calls 911,and I'm telling the cop we need help like 4 hours ago. The cop ask 'what part of the river, Like we knew.But at least I'm talking to a human.
He finds us by cell phone and tells us our location, I tell him I have no idea where that is.
After him calling other sources and telling me they don't do triver recues, call Wildlife or River management. I tell him our phone battery won't make unlimited calls and I 'm getting sick, or sicker.
The largest dog Maisie is now breathing in my face and the other one is jumping around barking, so I tell at them the shut up and get the heck off me.!
He connects us to Highway Patrol, who an officer just happened to be heading to our area, and I ask him if he could come get me, he said yes, and after walking up the steepest dock platform it was more like a slide than a platform so I'm taking one cautious step at a time hoping I don't slip or go backwards. I walk across the yard and there 2 HWP officers pulling in. I was totally out of breath from the climb by now and they looked like 2 angels.
We leave Jake and dogs ,and officer takes me to the house to get my van so I can load up the dogs and jake can save his boat which by now I don't ever want to see it or the river again.
We are down lots of winding dirt roads, and officer is telling me remember to turn here to left and there to right, I just agree still trying to come out of one of my worst anxiety attacks, hoping to see a sign of civilization soon.
For Jake it just gets worse on the river..........
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Oh no, Marie!!! How frightening.
 
On a positive note, we did meet 5 really nice people at the river.
An older gentleman on a golf cart that led us back to the boat who had lived there 40 years.
2 State Patrol officer's, one gave me a ride home to get the van.
A middle-aged man who saw Jake almost up to his chest at the rapids trying to pull the boat off a rock and a downed tree.
Jake will say more about this later when he comes on.
 
Don Alaska said:
How awful @Marie Mallory but glad everyone survived and safe. I have had some tricky river adventures, but I was a lot younger then. I don't make risky trips any more. I just have to remember what has been.

Did the boat AND @Jake Smith come through it all okay?
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Don, I betcha I'll remember too. The river was different a few years ago when we last visited, Now between the low rain fall past few years and the bottling company's taking more water, it's not only lower but now filled with tree's from hurricane.
You probably don't remember my post last time we went, but I was loving it and said, " when I die I want to die right here going down the river", Ironic, almost got my wish. Now I don't want to even drive over it on the bridge.
 
Marie Mallory said:
Don, I betcha I'll remember too. The river was different a few years ago when we last visited, Now between the low rain fall past few years and the bottling company's taking more water, it's not only lower but now filled with tree's from hurricane.
You probably don't remember my post last time we went, but I was loving it and said, " when I die I want to die right here going down the river", Ironic, almost got my wish. Now I don't want to even drive over it on the bridge.
Click to expand...
It sounds like you need a back up motor and a small chain saw. When we traveled small bush rivers, we always traveled UPSTREAM and had a saw to remove obstacles. No rescue and no cell phones there, but if we were going upstream and lost power, we could drift back downstream. I talked to one woman here who was traveling on a river and got snagged and capsized. She was with 5 or 6 other people and was the only smoker aboard. She therefore had a lighter safely stashed in a waterproof bag. She managed to start a fire and probably saved their lives from hypothermia. She said it was the only time that smoking SAVED her life.
 
Yeah, it was a hell of a day for all of us. My muscles got one heck of a workout. As Marie was saying in her post above, I had tried to get over the rapids at least 12 times and got stuck on a large tree and some rocks, and that guy who lives there had been watching me trying to get over the rapids to no avail. He came out and said I would come over there and help you, but you are too far, on the other side of the river. He told me if you can get it free, crank up and come to this side and I will show you how to get around them. So after getting back aboard and pulling the engine up, got back in and pulled like hell, it finally was free. Got back in and let the engine back down and cranked and went to his side of the bank. I pulled the engine back up, and he towed me by hand to the end of rapids and said now when you crank up head between those two fallen trees and don't stop or the current will take back across rapids. I asked him, how much do I owe you and he said just glad I could help you. I said well, I do owe you and thank you very much. Cranked and took off not slowing at all until passed all those rapids.


When we were stranded at the dock, Marie made me laugh about call 911, I said that's for emergencies only; she said you're fixing to have one if I don't get out of here soon. Right before I made it back to dock Marie was ringing cell phone and worried, told her I finally made it back, loading the boat and coming home. It was totally dark. After highway patrol came they came down to look at dogs and he said are they friendly, Getty went off on him and Maisie joined her, he looked at Leo said he looks friendly; I told he's scared, he was starved to death by his first owner and our vet Don gave him a full blood transfusion and it brought him back to life. I told look at his sister Foxy. They don't look alike at all.

I loaded the boat, then remembered that I had brought two flashlights, I brought with me, but forgot; just figured oh well it goes with the rest of our day.

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Getty's first boat ride.

IMG_20260109_115233066_HDR.jpg

Foxy and Leo always love river rides. Never even took one of Maisie after batteries went out. There's more to the story, but don't want to bore any of you, maybe post some along and along. Resting now just to get over that trip.
 
More of the story would be great, from either or both of you ! If you ran the battery down trying to get over the logs and around the rapids, why did you have to buy a whole new battery ? Most marine batteries are meant to be run down and then charged back up for the next time you use them, unlike regular car batteries.
Were you using both the electric motor and the outboard motor ? Where did you eventually take the boat out of the water, since I am assuming that you did not go all the way back upriver and over the logs and rapids again ?

PS the pictures are awesome ! ! And glad that you and the dogs are all okay and no serious injuries from your eventful day yesterday.
 
Don Alaska said:
It sounds like you need a back up motor and a small chain saw. When we traveled small bush rivers, we always traveled UPSTREAM and had a saw to remove obstacles. No rescue and no cell phones there, but if we were going upstream and lost power, we could drift back downstream. I talked to one woman here who was traveling on a river and got snagged and capsized. She was with 5 or 6 other people and was the only smoker aboard. She therefore had a lighter safely stashed in a waterproof bag. She managed to start a fire and probably saved their lives from hypothermia. She said it was the only time that smoking SAVED her life.
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We were going 'up the river, against currant. And yes a small saw would have been handy, but most of our problems was on the rocks.
 
Yvonne Smith said:
More of the story would be great, from either or both of you ! If you ran the battery down trying to get over the logs and around the rapids, why did you have to buy a whole new battery ? Most marine batteries are meant to be run down and then charged back up for the next time you use them, unlike regular car batteries.
Were you using both the electric motor and the outboard motor ? Where did you eventually take the boat out of the water, since I am assuming that you did not go all the way back upriver and over the logs and rapids again ?

PS the pictures are awesome ! ! And glad that you and the dogs are all okay and no serious injuries from your eventful day yesterday.
Click to expand...
Yvonne, the trolling motor was for a raft that a jon boat, we did use it but it was not doing any good against an upstream currant.
Yes he did go back up river against the currant because that was where we put in and went down river. Maybe mistake number one.
Jake will tell you the story about his next fight with rapids going back up.
 
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Yvonne Smith said:
More of the story would be great, from either or both of you ! If you ran the battery down trying to get over the logs and around the rapids, why did you have to buy a whole new battery ? Most marine batteries are meant to be run down and then charged back up for the next time you use them, unlike regular car batteries.
Were you using both the electric motor and the outboard motor ? Where did you eventually take the boat out of the water, since I am assuming that you did not go all the way back upriver and over the logs and rapids again ?

PS the pictures are awesome ! ! And glad that you and the dogs are all okay and no serious injuries from your eventful day yesterday.
Click to expand...


Thanks Yvonne, and yes I went back up river, over the trees and rocks and "rapids", as folks there call it. Took a long time and 12 tries later,got "really stuck", then on a big tree and some rocks, I put motor up and got in water and hand pulled it off, after straining myself a lot, then a man told me who lives there, when you get it free, come to this side and he would help me hand pull it past rapids, wading in water to do so. On the "batteries", I used the trolling motor to try and get back over the rapids because engine shut off on rocks, almost would make it across, then it would get stuck again and washed sideways and push back down the river again, until the battery died. Switched to another battery which it had been charging before we went, and it was already dead, must have gone bad on me; it's about 5 years or older. I bought another battery to make sure it would crank, to get back, and because I had to go back to the dock where the truck was, to load it. Like you I'm glad no one was hurt and the highway patrol officers love dogs, he's a Sargent, he told me, nice man. Counting my blessings, could've gone another direction, for sure. The widow woman who owns the house we docked at, had to have got the "note", I put on her gate with the pen and paper highway patrolman gave me to leave her a note, with my name and number, telling her we were going for a battery and coming back soon. Reason it was gone when we got back and the old man who helped us find the right dock told me, while I was putting new battery in, she probably never saw the note, I told him it's gone, and he said she must got it then. He was a nice older man too.
 
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