It Don't Have To Be Fun To Be Fun - Episode II

A bit over two miles into a four mile hike-in to our objective lower Yough river launch site situated at the mouth of Indian Creek valley, at confluence with the "mighty Yo". Maybe nine miles down river below the mountain town of "O-hip-o-lee". Our in-house built, "high-tech", but still experimental-phase "kayak and gear trolly" suffers a critical component failure which puts a dead halt to our march. Considering the usual competency of our 'chief engineer in charge of mobility and transportation' we never developed a back-up plan for this situation... now what? 

Subsequent inspection indicates needed repairs beyond our current capability. Considering our meagerly packed "emergency" tooling and hardware, which consisted of one serrated-edged knife with a handle end pommel designed for breaking out vehicle windows if in need of rescuing trapped passengers, we're ill equipped. Also carried the usual repair kit for punctured inflatable tubes. Of no help here. Subsequently, no items such as duct tape, an old inner tube or even a wad of chewing gum - ridiculously simple-sounding items we've used in the past to at least keep us moving until "out of the woods" (literally). 

Takin' a break before the break. The "trolly" totin' a two-man inflatable packed with a second inflatable, paddles, packs and such items. Lots of stuff that no one really wants to carry several miles by hand.

I'm thinkin' "Boy, if we even only had a roll of duct tape!" Which we actually did have - back home in a river repair kit always packed along when canoe tripping. Others are thinkin' too...

Solutions are tossed back and forth. Several suggestions are tried but stall. Muscle Girl Sarah mentions binding the failed connection with a tightly wound cam-strap and all the light bulbs immediately 'luminate... hey, this is gonna work!

Other than one additional temporary stop to re-configure and re-tighten the strapping we continued on unimpeded to the river. 

After a bit of reprimand of chief engineer Howie, we put 'em back to work this week at the drafting table and work bench to resolve the design bugs. Worked great, otherwise.

ICV launch

Time on the river