Saigon River Adventure

About a month ago, Marshall and I pieced together a boat for some river adventuring. We found an inflatable dingy, a used electric trolling motor from a guy who owns a fish and tackle shop, and a heavy ass deep cycle battery.

Marshall tying up to our sewage drain boat dock

We live one block from the river but there is no easy way to access the water. The river bank is built up and has a railing all along side it. To get in the water, we had to throw the boat over the ledge and then lower the motor and battery into the boat. Not so tough at high tide, but when the water level drops over a meter, it is pretty hard to scale the wall and lift a 70 lb battery up to street level.

We've gone out twice so far. The first time was just a short jaunt up to the Riverfarm restaurant to stop for some lunch and cold drinks. On the way there, we pass both super ritzy resorts and shanty make-shift houses. Everyone we passed got a kick out of us in our little boat and were waving and laughing! 

Lots of big freight boats on the main Saigon River to watch out for.

For our second boat adventure, we planned to go for most of the day to explore a small waterway that winds through the country side. We passed a quarry and lots of small houses on the river. I was pretty surprised to see people wading through the river, catching fish or harvesting plants. 

About 3.5 miles down the river as we are starting to get into a pretty remote area, the motor wouldn't switch into forward speed. Marshall could only get reverse to work. Something seemed jammed in the throttle. We had passed a fisherman a little ways back so Marshall reversed us onto land and he jumped out to go see if he had a screwdriver to open up the motor casing with. He downloaded a picture of a screwdriver and set off to find him. They returned but unfortunately, the fisherman's screwdriver was too small to reach the screws. We thanked him for trying and started paddling up river.

After a not so long paddle, we saw a little park with some stairs coming up from the river and a road near by so we decided this was probably a good place to either find a hardware store or a taxi to get back home. At the park was a man who seemed to be enjoying the view before heading off to work (he was wearing a construction site uniform). We asked him if he had a screwdriver and he had a few including a volt-meter. Marshall took the motor cover off and we quickly saw the issue. Some of the wires were a little melted and there was black rubber type stuff coming out of the transmission box. The motor was toast. 

The guy left for work and we decided to relax at the park, eat our PB&J sandwiches and drink our thermos of gin & tonic while listening to podcasts. Maybe not the grand river adventure we had in mind but it was sure a nice way to spend a Saturday morning.