Trolling motor and 3rd trip in Porta-Bote

Now, we felt much better and were optimistic that the electric trolling motor was going to be the answer to how to get forward motion on water in the Porta-Bote withminimal effort and without blowing the car up with gas fumes.  :)

So we headed to the Silver River for our 3rd trip out in the Porta-Bote.  It was more crowded today with a lot of people in canoes, kayaks or SUPs (Stand Up Paddle boards).  We always seem to attract a lot of attention because not many people have seen a foldable boat. 

Chuck put the trolling motor and battery in the back of the boat, we loaded up the boat, rolled it down the ramp, and I pushed us off and jumped in.  Because it was so crowded, we pulled off to the side to let some people in canoes go by us. 

As the canoes went by, one of the guys yelled out to us:  "Hey, what a cool boat you have!  It's even amphibious!  It's got wheels on it!"  We forgot to take the wheels off again!

Chuck took the wheels off and we headed out the canal and up the Silver River with our new trolling motor.  Chuck had the trolling motor on high and we were making forward progress but it was slow progress.  And when we came upon areas where the current was really strong, we made almost no progress.

So I alternated between rowing the boat in the middle seat and paddling the boat in the front seat and resting in between while Chuck operated the trolling motor.

We saw more turtles and birds...

 

and  some fish in the clear water

 

and this alligator who was just kind of hanging out.  :)

 

We made it a little further up the river but because we were running the trolling motor on high, the battery went dead.  We had not charged the battery when we bought it because they told us they sell the batteries fully charged.  So we tied off for a few minutes,

 

enjoyed the scenery,

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and floated back down river, paying careful attention to where the canal was so we didn't miss it and float all the way back down to the campground.  We had to row and paddle up the canal but it wasn't too bad because there's not any current in the canal. 

We didn't see any monkeys today and we're still a little frustrated with the Porta-Bote but we decided we would give it a try again on another day with a fully charged battery to see if that makes a difference.