Thread: Hammock Recomendations

I have to relate an experience using a hammock:
Was rafting the Motu several decades ago, at one overnight spot the heavens opened, and it rained and rained and rained. The other two rafts worth of guys were bemoaning the deepening puddle they were sleeping/swimming in, under their fly and I would chip in every now and then, reminding them just how warm and dry I was in the hammock/bivvy bag/tent fly combo above all the sodden shit. About an hour later a big wet slimy heavy thing started moving slowly into my personal space, close to my head. The torch was out of reach, and then it clicked: it was the old ratty black plastic lean-to someone else had left there, and I had set up my shelter next to it. It was filling with water and stretching all out of shape.

I wrangled my arm out of my nice warm sleeping bag and gave it a poke, hoping to see if it would swing away from me. Instead, my finger went straight through the bulging black plastic fly and a jet of water from the enormous bulge squirted right down my arm, and straight into the sleeping bag. By the time I had disentangled myself from my multiple layers of waterproofing, the bloody thing had emptied about 5 litres of rainwater into my now sodden sleeping bag.

The mirth from the fellows lying in the puddles developing under their fly took half an hour to die down...