Dangerous situations!

[Wallygator]

View attachment 129825In the early 1980's I was on a month long overlanding trip across the Kalahari in Botswana, southern Africa. After a few weeks together some of us were craving a little solitude and a break from the constant nighttime chatter of the camp workers. So one night I set up my tent well apart from the main group. I fell asleep reading on my cot and awoke sensing that some critter was in my tent. Remembering that I had not zipped up the door (see attached pix for a view of our rather old fashion tents), I froze, not even opening my eyes. We previously had several encounters with lions, and I was well aware that the black maned lions on the Kalahari have no fear of humans and are notoriously aggressive. Terrified, I was quite certain that a lion was in my tent nosing around. I could smell it, I could hear it breathing. Calling for help was likely to make things worse. Forming a plan of action, I tried to make an exact mental picture of where my flashlight and hunting knife were. I figured I'd blind the beast with the light and slash my way out of the tent, and then call for help! After rehearsing the plan in my head a dozen times, I made my move. In an instant I grabbed the light, got the knife drawn and rolled off the cot to the tent wall. I turned on the light and let out a violent scream. Menacingly facing me in the beam of my xenon Maglight, stood... nothing. No lion, no hyena, no fangs, no claws, nothing. The tent was empty except for me, and two little mice huddled frozen in the bright light, caught chewing on the headphone cord connected to my Sony Walkman. I guess I showed them a thing or two.

That's funny! But I have a feeling that if there was a lion in your tent you would have been woken up as you were being dragged out of it.

 

[Wilbah]

View attachment 129825In the early 1980's I was on a month long overlanding trip across the Kalahari in Botswana, southern Africa. After a few weeks together some of us were craving a little solitude and a break from the constant nighttime chatter of the camp workers. So one night I set up my tent well apart from the main group. I fell asleep reading on my cot and awoke sensing that some critter was in my tent. Remembering that I had not zipped up the door (see attached pix for a view of our rather old fashion tents), I froze, not even opening my eyes. We previously had several encounters with lions, and I was well aware that the black maned lions on the Kalahari have no fear of humans and are notoriously aggressive. Terrified, I was quite certain that a lion was in my tent nosing around. I could smell it, I could hear it breathing. Calling for help was likely to make things worse. Forming a plan of action, I tried to make an exact mental picture of where my flashlight and hunting knife were. I figured I'd blind the beast with the light and slash my way out of the tent, and then call for help! After rehearsing the plan in my head a dozen times, I made my move. In an instant I grabbed the light, got the knife drawn and rolled off the cot to the tent wall. I turned on the light and let out a violent scream. Menacingly facing me in the beam of my xenon Maglight, stood... nothing. No lion, no hyena, no fangs, no claws, nothing. The tent was empty except for me, and two little mice huddled frozen in the bright light, caught chewing on the headphone cord connected to my Sony Walkman. I guess I showed them a thing or two.

A new movie...The Mice and the Darkness....

I remember hearing Ravens one night and being convinced it was a gang of murderers killing someone. Animals can set us on edge when our minds run amok.

 

[Pretzel]

What year was this that you watched the training event? I was on the one back in 2012, pretty fun but didn't enjoy being on ship for 3 weeks with nothing to do leading up to the beach landing. I fish Onslow beach a lot being stationed here and all, its not as good as back home in the gulf coast but its better than being at work.

It was in '99... damn lol, 20 years ago. And I couldn't agree more about the beaches. There's some nice places here for sure, but I'm still biased from growing up in Pensacola.

 

[JoelIII]

It was in '99... damn lol, 20 years ago. And I couldn't agree more about the beaches. There's some nice places here for sure, but I'm still biased from growing up in Pensacola.

No kidding, I grew up in Cantonment. Enlisted in 06, mainly been stationed at Lejeune, waiting for orders now trying to go back to Japan. Aside from deployments, Japan is the only place I've been outside of Lejeune and the whole family wants to get back.

 

[Bob (Fishingbob)]

Watch out for the things that go bump in the night-

Just returned from a five day camping/fishing outing down to the Port Mansfield cut (a man-made/dredged canal that runs east and west from Port Mansfield, Texas to the gulf of Mexico), this separates South Padre Island from PINS (Padre Island National Seashore). Probably 50 or so miles from South Padre and 75-80 miles from Corpus Christi, TX.

From where I was camped on the north side of the cut, it is easy to see/hear/monitor fishing/camping areas along the south side of the cut during the day and even easier during the night. The sounds of a engine boat or motor vehicle can be heard for miles.

One perfectly calm, beautiful night at 11:30 PM (with a half moon) I was awakened by the sounds of a small maybe 12' aluminum boat and motor traveling to the end of the cut towards the meeting of the entrance and gulf of Mexico. No lights at all, no lights on the south side of the cut (on the beach), no motor vehicle had been there for hours. As the boat got closer to the end of the cut a small light came on-on the beach. Obviously someone had been dropped off (not camping) hours earlier and was waiting for someone. The boat came to stop at the light, the engine was shut off. The boat picked someone up from the beach, and transported them directly to the other side-now on the shore (south shore) of PINS. The motor was shut off. It restarted again about 10 minutes later, and proceeded west towards Port Mansfield until it reached about 100 yards past where I was camped and again pulled to the shore where it stayed for another 15 minutes. The motor started back up and it headed west again towards Port Mansfield-never to be seen or heard form again. I could not tell if there were two people in the boat at that time or just one. I laid there for hours in bed listening to the night sounds, occasionally hearing the sounds of a great blue Heron squawking as it took to flight after being disturbed in the night by something.

On previous camping ventures to the area I have found heavily littered camp sites, usually with 5 gallon containers of water, tarps, toilet paper, rain coats, rations -all of which can be purchased at a Dollar General store-cheap. I could have easily picked up 14-16 trash bags of junk-but I couldn't have taken it back unless I had a trailer to haul it. Obviously the site was being used as a illegal alien drop off zone -for a long time.

I suspect this last camping venture was more of a drug drop off situation-who knows. I did notice while I was returning from kayak fishing the next day, that some had driven past the access road to my campsite going towards the area where I had last heard the boat come ashore for 15 minutes or so the night before. Whatever the vehicle was it went to an area I would not have gone to-(I turned around when I encountered a huge deep mud hole four days earlier). This vehicle had massive 12-13" wide tires.

I was not armed to protect myself-but I will be in the future. Not that it would make a difference. I wasn't going to stay awake from 11:30 PM to the sun came up the next morning at 6:30 AM. Needless to say I didn't get a lot of sleep that night.

thanks
Bob

 

[Back Road Geezer]

That's funny! But I have a feeling that if there was a lion in your tent you would have been woken up as you were being dragged out of it.

I'm sure you're right. And then it would have been somebody else's story about the knucklehead who left the safety of camp and didn't bother to zip up his tent. A simple twist of fate, I guess.

 

[Billiebob]

Meanwhile in Canada

 

[prcjeep]

Watch out for the things that go bump in the night-

Just returned from a five day camping/fishing outing down to the Port Mansfield cut (a man-made/dredged canal that runs east and west from Port Mansfield, Texas to the gulf of Mexico), this separates South Padre Island from PINS (Padre Island National Seashore). Probably 50 or so miles from South Padre and 75-80 miles from Corpus Christi, TX.

From where I was camped on the north side of the cut, it is easy to see/hear/monitor fishing/camping areas along the south side of the cut during the day and even easier during the night. The sounds of a engine boat or motor vehicle can be heard for miles.

One perfectly calm, beautiful night at 11:30 PM (with a half moon) I was awakened by the sounds of a small maybe 12' aluminum boat and motor traveling to the end of the cut towards the meeting of the entrance and gulf of Mexico. No lights at all, no lights on the south side of the cut (on the beach), no motor vehicle had been there for hours. As the boat got closer to the end of the cut a small light came on-on the beach. Obviously someone had been dropped off (not camping) hours earlier and was waiting for someone. The boat came to stop at the light, the engine was shut off. The boat picked someone up from the beach, and transported them directly to the other side-now on the shore (south shore) of PINS. The motor was shut off. It restarted again about 10 minutes later, and proceeded west towards Port Mansfield until it reached about 100 yards past where I was camped and again pulled to the shore where it stayed for another 15 minutes. The motor started back up and it headed west again towards Port Mansfield-never to be seen or heard form again. I could not tell if there were two people in the boat at that time or just one. I laid there for hours in bed listening to the night sounds, occasionally hearing the sounds of a great blue Heron squawking as it took to flight after being disturbed in the night by something.

On previous camping ventures to the area I have found heavily littered camp sites, usually with 5 gallon containers of water, tarps, toilet paper, rain coats, rations -all of which can be purchased at a Dollar General store-cheap. I could have easily picked up 14-16 trash bags of junk-but I couldn't have taken it back unless I had a trailer to haul it. Obviously the site was being used as a illegal alien drop off zone -for a long time.

I suspect this last camping venture was more of a drug drop off situation-who knows. I did notice while I was returning from kayak fishing the next day, that some had driven past the access road to my campsite going towards the area where I had last heard the boat come ashore for 15 minutes or so the night before. Whatever the vehicle was it went to an area I would not have gone to-(I turned around when I encountered a huge deep mud hole four days earlier). This vehicle had massive 12-13" wide tires.

I was not armed to protect myself-but I will be in the future. Not that it would make a difference. I wasn't going to stay awake from 11:30 PM to the sun came up the next morning at 6:30 AM. Needless to say I didn't get a lot of sleep that night.

thanks
Bob

Fishing Bob! I saw a video of your Jeep/trailer on a local kayak fishing guides youtube channel. What a coincidence i found your post on here!

I live in Rockport now, getting back into fishing(been about 6 years), and also started building a new "overland" vehicle.

We did pins about 10 years ago, and saw some similar evidence of activity during the day. We camped a few miles from the cut because of it.

 

[the_rockies]

A few months ago I went offroading with some friends. It was a red flag day in the County which meant absolutely no fires so we were just cooking some food on our propane stove (allowed) when we heard a large group nearby. We had parked at the end of the trail and they were probably 0.25miles up the trail. The group had 3 jeeps, probably 15 people including 5ish kids under 10 and they were starting to build a fire. Because they were parked across the trail we were down we couldn't easily get out but we started packing because we knew it would be problematic as soon as they started the fire in the massive winds we were having. 15 minutes later the fire was going probably 5-10 feet in the air and was about 5 feet wide in the middle of a clearing of pine trees. My friends and I started driving over to their site to either get out of there or tell them to put out the fire and they all hopped in their cars and bolted. We had a bad feeling at that point because there was another fire probably 5 miles away that we heard about on the Forest Service radio that they were already responding to and we didn't want this one to get any bigger. We started tending to the fire in an attempt to put it out but eventually ran out of all our water and it was still going. We called 911 and they said they would dispatch a unit down the road to assist us in putting out the fire. 1 hour later no one had shown up and the fire was still going so we called the fire department and they said they "Chose not to respond" and they have the right to "respond at their discretion". That left a bad taste in our mouth and we waited until the fire was out cold and drove home because we didn't want to be sleeping and risk a flare-up if we missed something or the secondary fire spread towards us. So yeah, don't start a fire if there's a red flag warning and sometimes being suspicious of other people on the trails is a good thing

 

[grubworm]

A few months ago I went offroading with some friends. It was a red flag day in the County which meant absolutely no fires so we were just cooking some food on our propane stove (allowed) when we heard a large group nearby. We had parked at the end of the trail and they were probably 0.25miles up the trail. The group had 3 jeeps, probably 15 people including 5ish kids under 10 and they were starting to build a fire. Because they were parked across the trail we were down we couldn't easily get out but we started packing because we knew it would be problematic as soon as they started the fire in the massive winds we were having. 15 minutes later the fire was going probably 5-10 feet in the air and was about 5 feet wide in the middle of a clearing of pine trees. My friends and I started driving over to their site to either get out of there or tell them to put out the fire and they all hopped in their cars and bolted. We had a bad feeling at that point because there was another fire probably 5 miles away that we heard about on the Forest Service radio that they were already responding to and we didn't want this one to get any bigger. We started tending to the fire in an attempt to put it out but eventually ran out of all our water and it was still going. We called 911 and they said they would dispatch a unit down the road to assist us in putting out the fire. 1 hour later no one had shown up and the fire was still going so we called the fire department and they said they "Chose not to respond" and they have the right to "respond at their discretion". That left a bad taste in our mouth and we waited until the fire was out cold and drove home because we didn't want to be sleeping and risk a flare-up if we missed something or the secondary fire spread towards us. So yeah, don't start a fire if there's a red flag warning and sometimes being suspicious of other people on the trails is a good thing

i wish i could i say that its hard to believe that a group of people would start a fire and then take off and leave it like that, but that's getting to be more of the mentality these days. good thing you were there and handled it or it easily could have been another big fire that is on the news.

 

[Wanderer]

wow that hts close to home we have been out of the house due tot the creek fire for a month. just got backlast week even withthe house locked up tigh ash was everywhere . The thing is ihad just ordered anew kayak and was itiching to go test it on Yeo you guessed it mamaoth pools resivoir, but it wastoo hot so I waited a couple of days . That was the day the creek fire started! SO glad i didn't go!!

 

[rgallant]

@the_rockies good on you for dealing with it, we have those idiots up here too. They start a fire during a ban and if anyone that might be forestry shows up they run. I spent a couple of hours helping a fire marshal put out a big "campfire" a few years back.

 

[genocache]

One time I was in Nevada on the Extraterrestrial Hwy in my Ford Ranger, I stopped for a break at a spring and got out and walked around. I made the mistake of leaving the door open. Returning in a few minutes to the truck I got back in and drove off and eventually found a campsite for the night. In the morning I found my bag of trail mix on the seat had a hole in it and some was missing. The doors had been shut all night. I had picked up a thief who was content to ride along in hiding and eat my hard won food stores!
I opened both doors and banged the crap out of the bench seat cushions then walked away. Came back in 5 min and did it again. Then packed up camp while the doors remained open. I never saw it leave, but it didn't eat the snack I left out the next night.

I never want to go through that again! Probably ET on his way home! ;^)

 

[grubworm]

Probably ET on his way home! ;^)

sounds like you dodged a bullet.....most extraterrestrial contact usually involves probing

 

[Desert Runner]

sounds like you dodged a bullet.....most extraterrestrial contact usually involves probing

View attachment 173550

Being that highway is just north of the test site, you can be....'privileged'.... to see some strange things. If your in the right spot at the right time. It is not called DREAMLAND casually,...... without reason.

 

[WilhelmB]

In the early 90's I was a manager for a well known fast food chicken restaurant for about 5 years. towards the end of that time (and the reason I left) I was robbed at gun point twice within 3 months. the first time I was covering a shift for a friend at a store i did not normally work at. about an hour from closing a man armed with a sawn off shotgun and wearing a balaclava jumped the counter and came into the office as i was counting money and doing the books. I followed all directions , handed over the days takings (about $7k) and he was in and out before most of the staff knew he was there. I consider myself pretty resilient and I was not affected much by this encounter, even though a shotgun was pointed at me there was no other violence towards me or my team. After that event my company decide to increase the cash security and put a 2 key dropbox into all their stores so that all cash cleared during the day could only be accessed when a security guard came to collect, we had one key and the security company had the other.

On a Wednesday night i was working the late shift at my regular store. It was about an hour from closing and i was in the office counting money and doing the books when i heard a scream. my initial thought was "not again". this time there was two of them faces covered and with hunting rifles one even had a scope on, which when i noticed thought was very weird. scope guy stayed in the kitchen area and made my team of 4 lay face down on the ground the other guy came into the office with a bag he wanted me to fill. I only had access to a few hundred in cash and about a dozen bags of coins which he was not impressed with. he demanded pushing the end of the barrel into my face that i open the safe, when i told him that i could not he hit me with the stock just above my eye brow. i was crouched beside the safe when he hit me and i was knocked backwards hitting my head onto the ground. He dragged me back up by my collar and again demanded. I told him i could not and while pointing said " i only have one key this is a two key safe " He still did not accept and hit me again and threatened to blow my brains out. I remember thinking that i should make a grab for the his weapon if he tried again but being responsible for the lives of my staff ( all under 18) i kept my cool and continued to try to reason.

I do remember saying at one stage calling him stupid if he could not understand that one key cant open two locks. Any way after what felt like an eternity but was probably less that 5 minutes he accepted the small amount including the bags of silver coins and dragged me towards the back door. Scope guy took the bag opened the door and disappeared into the darkness. My friend dragged me out into the loading bay, pushed me against the wall and lined me up through his sights. I thought that was it for me. then a car pulled up he jumped in and was gone.

I did not cope as well this time. the company provided counselling and i took about 2 weeks paid leave. when i went back to work i only did day shifts for about a month but i never got comfortable again and when i went back to doing night shifts i would be physically sick for hours before and was a wreck while working and had nightmares for months after. Over 20 years later and i still get those feelings talking about it and even typing this out is difficult.

I left the company about 3 months after the second robbery and worked as a mail man for a few years which in the end was good therapy being out and about.

 

[Kevin108]

I had my front and rear LEDs on once while setting up in the dark and and a drunk guy pulled into my site wanting to see the UFO.

Saw a guy piss in the river on the edge of camp. There was no way to know there was a site on the other side of the water.

The only one that was weird was once when I was setup in camp and had gone for a short hike. Some guy in a car pulled up and wanted to show me something in a closed-off camp site. He was probably legit but I told him I was headed back to camp to catch up with my friends.

The vast majority of the time everything is completely quiet and many times I never see another person for days. If there is a visitor, usually it's just a fly fisherman wanting to climb out of the river and get back to the road.

 

[the_rockies]

@the_rockies good on you for dealing with it, we have those idiots up here too. They start a fire during a ban and if anyone that might be forestry shows up they run. I spent a couple of hours helping a fire marshal put out a big "campfire" a few years back.

yeah, its never fun when people do that but my Boy Scout instincts kick into high gear when I see a fire left unattended.