At Ulong on Day 14, they go and get a crate from treemail, and the crate is attached to a note. The note, in alarmist military-style lingo, explains that the other team (referred to in the note as "your enemy," because of the theme, you know?) will be trying to open this box to get out its flag, and your job is to tie up the box with ropes to make it as hard to get into as possible. "Make this box impenetrable," the instructions say. Of course, you're not really going to make it impenetrable by tying it up with rope, or safe deposit boxes would look really different, but you get the idea. And then the instructions say that you're to bring the box with you to the challenge. Which Koror probably would have figured out without help, but Ulong? Not likely. Ulong would have brought the crate to tribal council but not to the challenge. It's actually a good thing they didn't win the beef stew, or they'd probably have tried to patch their shoes with it.

Ulong sets about tying up its crate, and James announces that he knows this knot. It's a knot from the Navy. It's a Navy knot. A magic Navy knot. He vows to the team that, first of all, Koror will not find the magic knot, and if they do find it, they won't be able to do anything about it, as their efforts to pull on it will be unavailing. I believe he is implying that the knot knows kung fu. Now, what would make anyone think that James was capable of magic, I am not sure, but the team seems to be willing to take his word for it. As James arranges the ropes around the crate, Bobby Jon voices over that, indeed, James told them that he was all over this part of the challenge. "We spent a lot of time tyin' this one knot," Bobby Jon smiles, "that he said is like, that when you pull on it? It's just gon' get real, real tighter." You know, sometimes I have daydreams where we sit around and he speaks Bobby Jon-ese to me while feeding me grapes. (Not Pringles, though. No Pringles.) Steph gives some clue of what's supposed to be magic about the magic knot when she marvels that Koror will be going crazy trying to find the end. So apparently, it's a knot that conceals the end of the rope? "I'm pretty sure this is ours for the taking," Steph says into the camera with a grin, because I really love her, but she never smartens up. Maybe it's exactly because she never smartens up that I love her, come to think of it.