The mighty Flying Boat would alight on estuaries in Borneo to visit Dyak communities by motoring up the rivers.... On their return the beast was fired up and allowed to drift downriver using differential power till the water was suitably wide and straight for take-off.
Yes my dad has told of taxiing up the rivers of borneo in the early '50s 'swinging the lead' to check the depth of water with a wax layer on the bottom of the lead weight to see what the river bed consisted of. He was a signaller on 209 sqn. His skipper was the son of an RN officer and tried to run the aircraft as a ship. That didn't go down too well by all accounts!