So up at 2 am and the girls drive us up the highway to the Halfway river. My fear of the halfway in flood is greater then the Peace and we found it well founded. ugly and powerful. first launch sends us upstream at whiplash speed trapped in a back eddy that I can't row out of! On the 3 or 4th twirl the boat whips by the shore close enough for an extraction. down stream a couple hundred yards we try again. zoom it is like falling down an elevator shaft. I can just keep her in control but not much more. So much ice (?), rock and detrious is in the river that it sounds like a dump truck is unloading against the sole of the boat. Get in the groove after 500 ms and am feeling like we might just survive when a small grizzly bear shows up on the left bank. Cool. WTF, the little guy runs straight in the water and starts swimming across ( perpendicular to the current and he is not loosing much ground downstream!) it dawns on us that this is a collision course and that by the time that happens the bear might be interested in an island. The lower deck crew arms himself with a plastic walmart paddle with which to repel boarders
and we start hooting and hollering. Bear finally sees us and reverses course. Hits the bank and tears off up stream like a frieght train. Phew that was exciting. brains re engage and we voice some concern that he is heading to where we left a skinny ten year old girl and her pregnant mom 
No harm done. But the bear could have been hurt!Make it thru the confluence cauldron and fire up the Phil's 40 plus long leg (well half is his half is mine
) So now to the seagull point of the post. Is there any greater engine then the 40 plus? I think not. She served us so well that infatuation has turned to love. This river is running an honest 7 knots and maybe more in tightspots. The 40 maintained ample steerage even when we were obviously going down hill. Average speed for the trip over 70 kms of travel was 14 km/hr! In one tight spot I glanced at the GPS and she was a steady 18. The gull would hold us like an anchor when pointing upstream in the worst of it and would give us 4 km/hr in the wide spots. Obviously not an upstream engine but down stream she was a champ 
. I had packed 3 springs, 3 props and 6 split pins in the spares box but we never hit the bottom once (extreme luck). ENgine ran like a champ but might have started missing abit at the end, gonna check the plug after tonights fishing trip. I want to finish the second tank of fuel first though.Found two small bull moose so it was a successful trip.
Couple vids of what a 40 is capable of.
white knuckles?
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A little whitetail buck
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I know you guys love lugging your 102s and paying top dollar for rare parts but in the itsy bitsy range of motors ya can't beat a 40!