Birthday in the City

Matt has the Prime Rib on the smoker, there are lobster tails thawing in the galley and lemon cake in the reefer (which I sure hope does not taste like lobster!!!!) and I got dinghy running lights for my birthday! Yea! It is beautiful here today. Looking forward to a great dinner with great friends in a few hours.

The City

A bit overcast but not raining. Joe and Carrie (on Ada Helen) will be here shortly.

New Year's

We are headed to South Beach Marina in San Francisco for the weekend. That is the city in the photo.

Christmas Gifts II

New cover for old life sling, on one of two LL Bean waterhog mats (one in front of each door, helping already!).

Christmas gifts I

Dinghy towing bridle and 100' floating towline, in front of new LL Bean zip top tote.

Lunch Trip

The other Saturday (11/12/11) we had a boat project day planned out.  It was such a nice day, though, we felt we had to take advantage of the good weather so we decided to take a little cruise instead.  We had to leave early on Sunday to go to the Forty-Niners v. Giants game (go niners!!) so an overnighter was out.  We decided since it was an especially high tide to head over to our favorite shallow destination, San Leandro Marina.  The channel has supposedly been dredged but it is not anywhere we care to go unless there is a LOT of water.  We headed over in late morning and where they are noon, shortly before high tide.  We were seeing 10-11 feet of depth on the way in.  We stopped by the harbormaster's office and were assigned a slip directly in front of Horatio's restaurant.  We had our choice of eating there or El Torito's and decided to go with Horatio's and the view of our boat.  We had a great lunch and were totally stuffed so we took a brief nap before leaving. 

at San Leandro

On the way out, we had to stop by the harbormaster's office to drop off the key and we decided to pump out while we were there, then we headed out.  It was about 2 hours after high tide but the tide was still up.  We saw depths as low as six on the way out, which is why we only transit that channel at high tide!

We had flat water and beautiful conditions coming and going so we are glad we took advantage of the great weather to take the boat out.  There will be plenty of yucky weather days this winter to get projects done!

Moving Up to the BIG TIME

I can't believe I forgot to post about this...  If you look back to one of the first posts about PG II, you will read of the horrible tragedy of the much anticipated ice maker croaking after making one batch of ice. 

the one and only batch of ice from the old machine

This was a sad, sad day for Matt as he had been Soooo looking forward to that badge of the true power boater, the ice maker.  Well, it took over a year but we finally have a new one!  It was an anniversary gift from me to Matt.  It took a few weeks to get it and Matt was going nuts waiting for it but I think it was worth the wait.  It fits perfectly into the cabinet, is very quiet and puts out a lot of ice.  I believe it makes 22 or 23 pounds a day, about twice as much as it actually holds.  Which is a good thing because now we are Joe's source for free ice. :)

perfect fit

after just a few hours...

Commodore's Cup 2011

We actually went sailing last Saturday.  And not only sailing but RACING.  I am pretty sure I have not sailed, and I have definitely not raced, since the Pac Cup last summer.  We joined Joe and Carrie on Ada Helen for the Commodore's Cup Regatta at our yacht club.  We had a total of six people on the crew and were racing in the spinnaker division.  Matt and I had not flown a spinnaker since July of last year and apparently nobody else on the boat had either.  There is nothing all that difficult about sailing but once you throw in the spinnaker it can get a little dicey.  There are a LOT of extra control lines and you have to really keep an eye on the spinnaker because if it gets overpowered by the wind it can start to take over control of the boat in sudden and unexpected ways. 

So since nobody had flown a spinnaker recently nobody was super excited about flying it, but since it wasn't super windy we decided to go for it.  The idea is as soon as you round the mark of the course that closest to the wind and round it to head back downwind, you should have the spinnaker up and flying.  To be able to do this, obviously you have to be ready to go before you get to the mark.  We had all the lines run but the actually spinnaker was down below as we noticed that the mark was only a few dozen yards away.  Oops.  So Joe and Matt dragged the spinnaker up and started attaching the lines as we rounded the windward mark. 

Eventually we got the sail up and flying, then we realized that some of the control lines had been led wrong so we were not able to get proper sail shape.  After much discussion of the best way to rectify this problem and finally set a plan in motion.  It didn't go too badly but Matt did up with a bad rope burn on one finger and we had a few moments of the spinnaker tossing the boat around a bit.  We should have been moving at a pretty good pace with the spinnaker up, yet we were passed near the next mark on the course by the same type of boat that was NOT flying a spinnaker and that was NOT a good moment.  Luckily for our pride we soon past them back on the next leg of the course.  Though they passed us again before it was over. 

So we were doing the same course twice around and once we were back on the windward leg we put the spinnaker away until we needed it again.  Once again we were a bit late getting it out but at least we had all the lines run right....  sorta.  This time around, we attached the bottom of the sail backwards, so the short edge was at the front.  The front edge of the sail ends up stretched between the halyard at the top (top of the mast) and the downhaul at the bottom, at the front of the boat.  So Joe was looking up and the top of the sail was feet from the top of the mast and we were trying to get it all the way to the top.  The person who was trying to raise the sail was telling Joe that it would not go up any farther.  We could not figure out what was wrong until Joe started checking things over and realized that the downhaul was tight as a drum.  That is when he noticed the word CLEW written on the spinnaker above where the outhaul was attached. That was where the TACK was supposed to be attached, on the longer edge of the sail.  Luckily we noticed this before the sail ripped!

So we got it flipped around properly and set about trying to catch up with the rest of the fleet.  It was pretty much a lost cause at that point, though we did have a good time and the rain held off until after the race ended and never got above spitting out a few drops at a time. 

So we were last in our division but it was a good time!

Angel Island October 2011

We spent a fabulous three day weekend at Angel Island October 21-23rd.  We actually got up there late on Thursday the 20th, though it was not a midnight run like our trip to the Wheelchair Regatta.  We headed up there after work Thursday and arrived about an hour after sunset.  It was slack tide and we were easily able to pick up the bow mooring by coming up alongside it and grabbing it from the gate amidships.  We then let the boat drift backwards to what would be the stern mooring and Matt jumped in the dinghy to hook us up to that one.  It all went fairly smoothly and we were soon tied up and ready to help Joe and Carrie get tied up as well. 

Ada Helen

 

Sparkler 3



Pineapple Girl

A few more boats from our yacht club showed up early Friday and once we had everyone tied up, several of us headed to shore to explore.  We quickly divided into the hardcore exercisers who set up on a hard core speed walk all the way around the island and the sightseers who went on a casual stroll to the Garrison on the East end of the island.  We all got back to Ayala Cove about the same time and made plans to meet up on Pineapple Girl for dinner.  Carrie made a fabulous pork tenderloin with Molasses and Coffee barbecue sauce.  We also had all sorts of other fabulous food provided by our guests.  Including us, we had a thirteen for dinner.  It did not prove an unlucky number and everything went great.

We weren't alone on the Island Saturday Night

Saturday the exercising crew once again went on a trip around the island while some others went to the cafe on the island for lunch and to listen to live music.  The live music turned out to be banjo music so we didn't stay too long and were soon back on our boats and playing around in the cove in the fabulous warm weather.  Saturday evening we had appetizers and pot luck dinner on shore and then retired back to the boats fairly early. 

the Brunch Bunch

Sunday morning we met up at the park docks and loaded everyone up on Pineapple Girl to head over to Tiburon for brunch at Sam's Anchor Cafe.  It can be a little difficult to get space on the Sam's docks so we were a little concerned about getting space.  There was room for us when we got there but we could not access the space due to the position another boat was in.  We were ready to give up when the owners of the boat came down and agreed to move it for us so we could get in.  Turned out they recognized our boat as they had also been at Angel Island the night before.  One of them actually recognized the make and model of our boat, which has never happened to us before as there were not a lot of them made.

the boat at Sam's dock

We had a terrific brunch then spent some time shopping in downtown Tiburon before heading back to Angel Island.  We were almost back to the cove when someone suggested we go around the island first.  Since nobody really wanted to go back yet, we all quickly agreed to that suggestion and had a great circumnavigation.  Then we reluctantly headed back in and dropped everyone at the dock then headed back to Coyote Point.

It was one of the best weekends we've ever had at Ayala Cove.  We have led the Coyote Point Cruise there each October for the past several years and this year we had the fewest boats and the best weather we have ever had.  It was really nice to have a small number of boats as that way we were able to have everyone on our boat Friday night and we were able to take everyone to Sam's for brunch.  The weather felt like summer and several people actually went swimming.  It was a great way to end the official cruising season. 

Boat Chores

Lately we've done a few boat chores.  One entertaining one was cleaning the bilges.  I was prompted to do this by coming down to the boat on a Friday evening and being annoyed at the odor in my cabin.  It is not unusual for an older diesel powered boat to have a bit of an interesting aroma to it, but on this evening it just seemed stronger and more funky than usual. 

I grabbed a flashlight and opened up the bilge compartment in the aft cabin.  The opening is maybe 12x12 and the area of the bilge it gives access to is fairly limited as the bilge basically ends shortly aft of it and there is a fuel tank under the floor forward of it that limits access to clean beneath it.  There are also a couple of pieces of pipe sticking up with no discernible purpose.  The surveyor who did our pre-purchase survey thought the pipes were rather odd.  So as to the cleaning bit, there was a lot of what seemed like sediment in there.  This is where I was really glad we got a shop vac, as that sure came in handy as I attacked the bilge with most every cleaning product we had on the boat, then added water (the handheld shower head conveniently is long enough to spray into the bilge) and vacuumed.  I wouldn't say it was spotless or odor free when I was done, but I sure got a lot of gunk out of there.  Best not to think about what it was or where it came from...

The next day I set about cleaning the rest of the bilge, starting forward at the access hatch in the galley.  this is a much larger access hatch, maybe 24" x 24".  I ran the water hose in through the port in the head, adjacent to the galley, and got out the long handled brush to reach as far forward as possible in the bilge.  It goes a long way forward from this access point, to where it tapers up to nothing at the bow.  I spent quite sometime psyching myself up to duck down under the floor and crawl around in there.  I finally convinced myself it would be better than being in a crawl space, which I have done before, as it is HIGHLY unlikely there is anything other than spiders possibly living in there.  No rodents or snakes, for instance.  Though one of our friends once found a dead rat on his boat.... but I digress.  So I finally decided to go for it but I couldn't actually contort my body enough to get fully in there.  Maybe if I had tried harder... No, definitely no way.  So I scrubbed as best as I could as far forward as I could.  The space only went aft a few feet before running into the bulkhead for the engine room, which was my next area of bilge to attack.   This forward area came fairly clean and did not have any weird mystery sediment.

So onto the engine room.  I brought the hose through the side door and removed all the floor boards to the engine compartment.  The floor of the engine room then comes up in two sections.  I had very limited access to the aft section of the bilge under the engine room as the battery boxes come down in that area and I did not want to risk getting water on the batteries.  As it was I manged to spray water everywhere a few (okay SEVERAL) times.  What I could reach did come fairly clean.

This whole project took several hours and the net result was a fairly clean looking bilge but not a significant improvement in the funkiness factor.  Ah the joys of boat ownership.  We just brought the dehumidifier back to the boat so maybe that will help with the general funkiness.

Another recent chore was changing the oil.  It had been over a hundred hours on the motors (we put on 111 hours in the year we'd had the boat).  We were well prepared for this chore as we had purchased of a couple of cases of Delo 400 15W-40 in advance.  We rose bright and early Saturday to begin... then realized we did not have oil filters.  Which began a lengthy errand run that sent us to three different stores.  The giant filters our motors take are not a standard item at the corner auto parts store, unfortunately, so that took visits to two stores.  We also needed some kind of container to put some of the oil from each motor and the generator in (each in its own container) so we could have the oil analyzed and compared to the oil analysis done prior to purchase.  We are lucky to have a good friend that can get this analysis done for us locally.  The point of this is to watch for trends which could be signs of problems with the motor, so hopefully you can nip them in the bud before they might lead to greater problems.  So anyway we ended up buying some plastic storage containers at the grocery store for that.

So we FINALLY got back to the marina and borrowed an oil extractor from a friend and set to work sucking out about 22 quarts of oil, between the two Perkins and the generator.  As the extractor only holds five quarts and we did not want to mix oil from different motors, due to the sampling, this process involved MANY trips back and forth to dump the oil in to the used oil container the marina maintains.  We tried to speed things up a bit by using a second oil extractor but we could not get it to build up any suction to actually EXTRACT any oil so that was a lost cause.  Finally, many, many hours after our early arising to attack this project we were done. 

...Except we didn't have QUITE enough oil to refill everything we emptied so we had to go back to the store (later that week) and get more before we were really done.  And then we ended up putting a touch too MUCH oil in the port motor and then had to take some back out.  Sigh.  Nothing is ever simple when it comes to this yachting stuff!

We really need to go back and get some spare oil filter to keep on the boat but we haven't made time yet--we cleaned out the store's stock to get enough for the oil change.  Soon.

WheelChair Regatta

This past weekend we participated in the PICYA WheelChair Regatta at Encinal Yacht Club.  If you are a regular blog reader you may already realize that Encinal is one of our favorite Yacht Clubs to visit, so this combined with the chance to give back to our armed service veterans presented a not to be missed opportunity.  PICYA invites veteran's from the local VA hospitals here in Northern California to come for a ride on a power boat.  They are not necessarily in Wheelchairs but are disabled in some way. 

We had six veterans join us, along with two attendants from the VA and one member of PICYA who narrated the cruise.  We also had our friends Joe and Carrie along so thirteen people in total.  One of our veterans was wheelchair bound and the other five all had canes and used walkers.  The fellow in the wheelchair and one of the others were blind as well.  We got the five "ambulatory" guys settled in on the flybridge, with the blind fellow (he had some visions but was legally blind) picked the spot right by the helm.  He spent the whole trip talking to Matt and seemed to have a great time.  Some of the other guys went to sleep, but I still think they enjoyed being out on the water.

you can see the five vets up on the flybridge with Matt.  The three folks seated on the sun deck are the sixth vet (wheelchair bound) and the two attendants.  Joe, Carrie and I are on the boat casting off and the fellow on the dock is the PICYA rep who came along and narrated parts of the adventure for the veterans.

We were supposed to go out for about an hour and a half and then bring the vets back for a BBQ lunch.  We headed up the Alameda estuary, went to the South of Treasure Island, crossed under the Bay Bridge to the ferry building, then turned South, back under the bridge, ducked into McCovey Cove for a look at the Giants stadium then back across the Bay and down the Estuary.  We were one of the first boats to leave and as we returned, after about two hours, we saw quite a lot of boats just leaving.

We got all the vets unloaded (thanks to the Oakland and Alameda Fire Departments!) and then headed up for the BBQ.  Joe got into a conversation with the Marine running the grill and Carrie mentioned Joe had been a Marine as well.  The BBQer made a comment to the effect of "this long haired hippy was a Marine?" and he gave Joe a pork chop.  I have no idea where the chop came from as the menu was hot dogs and hamburgers!

We were the first boat to get back that was staying the night and we ended up tucked into one of the inside corners of the U shaped dock.  This meant we were at the mercy of those around us as to when we could leave on Sunday morning.  We weren't really planning to leave early as we were pretty sleep deprived after arriving around 2 am on Saturday.  That is a whole story of its own but I'll just say we had a beautiful ride over and we both enjoy boating at night.  That was our first night trip on this boat and all went well.

We had a great trip home on Sunday.  There was a bit of drizzle but all the more reason to stay below and watch the 49ers game during the trip.  The 49ers won, which was a great bookend to a great weekend.

August 31st - September 5... Goodbye to Summer

As I previously posted, we got to Willow Berm late on Tuesday the 30th.  We had the best of intentions for leaving early on Wednesday for our trip to Benicia but the boat was FILTHY.  Maybe it is the fact there is a lot of farmland around there but there was full on dirt coating the boat, plus all the spiders and spiderwebs that seemed to thrive everywhere we went in the Delta.

Bye bye Delta.  Until next year!

Matt had said he wanted to see a freighter up close.  We did just that in New York Slough.

So after lots of scrubbing we finally set off mid morning.  As we were getting towards Antioch it seemed rather rough.  New York Slough towards Pittsburg wasn't too bad but once we were out of the slough and turned south (in Susuin Bay I believe) it REALLY got rough.  We were taking water over the windscreen on the flybridge and were discovering some window leaks we didn't know we had.  We briefly entertained the idea of turning around and staying in Pittsburg but decided to carry on to Benicia.  This day there were no Coast Guards to run us off from the Port Chicago Naval Weapons Depot but we still gave it a wide berth.  Conditions were improving as we approached Benicia and we flirted with the idea of carrying on but with no good way to know what the conditions were in San Pablo Bay we decided to stop. 

Benicia Harbormaster's Office from our slip.

We had been instructed to pull up at the dock by the harbormaster's office to receive our slip assignment.  The wind was blowing us off the dock and we were basically we were trying to parallel park between two other boats in a space less than twice the length of our boat.  Matt was getting really frustrated but after a good 15 or 20 minutes he was able to get close enough to the dock that I could jump off.  At this point one of the people on the boat behind where we were pulling in offered to help out.  Matt snapped "we've got it NOW."  And of course within a few minutes of our finally getting tied up that boat left.  Thanks.  A lot.  Right.

We checked in with the harbormaster's office and they sent us over to a "35 foot" slip.  There is no way that slip was 35'.  We were hanging WAY off the back, as was the 32' boat in the slip next to us.  Oh well, it was only for one night!  We walked in to town for a late lunch and later walked the docks and met all sorts of really nice people.  There was a woman we met who lived on her houseboat.  She gave us a tour and it was HUGE and really nice.  She said she'd had it shipped out from wherever she bought it, somewhere in Nevada or Arizona I think.  Anyway, we had a fun time talking to her and many others.

The next morning I had to stand at the gate and hold it open as Matt walked the key over to the harbormasters office.  I am not sure how safe it is to have to have a key to get off the docks as well as on.  Seems dangerous in an emergency.  Anyway, we got underway a little earlier than we had the prior day.  San Pablo Bay was smooth as glass and we had an uneventful trip to Tiburon / San Francisco Yacht Club. 

One of the "brother's" in San Pablo Bay.

We met with Jay, the Port Captain of San Francisco Yacht Club, and figured out where everyone was going to dock, then had a delicious lunch there.  We took a walk around town and I saw a thrift shop.  Since this is a nice area I figured they'd have good stuff so I took a look and found a cute Tommy Bahama sleeveless polo shirt.  I called Matt in to pay for it for me and he saw the Tommy Bahama label and rolled his eyes, expecting it to be expensive.  $3.50. It was half price day.  Whoo hoo.  Matt liked that.  We ran into half the people from the cruise in as we continued our walk around town.

The view of our club boats from the SFYC deck.

We had signed up for dinner at the yacht club as well, despite a rather high price tag. We ate with two other couples from our club and had a great time--great food and better company. We somehow got on to telling "how we met" stories and they were great. We went to bed absolutely stuffed with big smiles on our faces.

We all agreed to head out at 11 on Friday morning as there was some concern about the tides and having enough water in the Looooong and narrow channel into San Rafael that leads to the Marin Yacht Club. Luckily we were in touch with someone who'd left from the club very early that morning who reported no issues with skinny water as he went through the channel so we went through with confidence. Though we did have a moment where the depth read " . " whatever that means!

We stayed at Marin from Friday until Monday. What can I say about it other than it was FUN FUN FUN. We took the dinghy up the creek and gawked at the houses (no dead body this year, that is another story), we tried stand up paddle boarding, we went fishing with Gary and Lucille on Panda Angler, we took a whole bunch of people up the creek on Pineapple Girl, we ate lots of great food and had a fantastic time. It was really tough to leave on Monday and head back to Coyote Point but the time had come to get back to reality. We had a nice ride back and the wind held off on REALLY blowing until after we were back in our slip. Note to self for next time, after a six day trip, stop at the pump out before going back to the slip! We had to make an emergency run to pump out this past Saturday to make up for our shortsightedness.

Marin Cruise 2011 - Saturday

We tried stand up paddleboarding this morning and fishing this afternoon. Life is good.

Goodbye to the Delta

I don't think I blogged about our trip to Stockton for fuel weekend before last. That was our last hurrah on the Delta. We got to the boat maybe thirty minutes ago for our last night on the Delta, at least for this year. We leave in the morning for points West on our return to the bay and our first cruise destination when we bought Pineapple Girl II a year ago Thursday, Marin Yacht Club in San Rafael.

We are getting everything put away and prepared for a somewhat early departure in the morning. The forecast looks decent and conditions will determine whether we stop in Benicia or head on to Tiburon, our destination for Thursday to meet up with our cruise out group from Coyote Point.

We are sad to leave but hope to be back here next year for more great adventures. Willow Berm is a great marina with wonderful staff and tenants and we have enjoyed our month here, and our month at Delta Bay in July.

Delta Asphalt Sloughs

Last weekend on the delta was one for car based exploration.  We drove up Saturday morning by a different route that took us past all the windmills near fairfield to approach Rio Vista from the West.  Once we were through Rio Vista we decided to take a scenic drive instead of heading straight to the boat.  I forgot the camera so I will try to add some links...  we drove up to Walnut Grove and Locke. 

These places both have a lot of history to them and were home to a lot of the Chinese who originally built the levees.  There is still a large Asian American presence in both towns and there are some interestring historical spots in both, but particulary Locke, which has kind of an eery feel and is definitely a throw back to another era.

We noticed an ice cream shop (Mel's) in Walnut Grove and stopped in for a scoop.  We noticed some people eating sandwiches and Matt remarked that they looked good.  One of the patron's turned to us and gave his sandwich a rave review and said the roll was especially excellent, so we decided to get a sandwich for later as well.  Well let me tell you, these folks do not mess around.  I ordered a single scoop on a cone and there was so much ice cream on there I had to act fast before I lost any of it off the sides.  Matt got his single in a cup and I think they mounded up about a pint of ice cream in there.  He couldn't even eat it all.  When they realized we were going to share the sandwich they threw in a second bag of chips.  We ate the sandwich later and was indeed delicious.  I think it was called a Hog's back (named after a local landmark) and it had bacon, I think ham AND turkey, cheese, various veggies.  The roll was a type I was not familiar with and cannot remember the name of but it was good and was not soggy even though it was awhile before we ate the sadwich. 

We headed back down 160 and stopped at the Ryde Hotel, which we had noticed on the way up.  The place has a lot of history, it was built in 1927 and had a speakeasy in the cellar back in the day.  We checked out one of the rooms and are considering a visit at some point, or at least going for brunch someitme.  It is right on the river and has beautiful grounds. 

We finally got to the boat sometime in mid afternoon and spent awhile cleaning it, then decided instead of hot dogs for dinner we'd walk over to Alebrijes at the Lighthouse, right next door.  We had a fun time and they had a great band.  Unfortunately we could still here the band quite well when we were back on our boat trying to go to sleep but oh well...

Sunday we decided to try someplace in Isleton for lunch.  We went to the Levee Cafe.  Matt absolutely LOVED the Chile Colorado that he ordered and my BLT was good.  It was a very "hometown" kind of place, nothing fancy and just one person taking care of the whole room (not that they were busy at 2 on Sunday).  Matt wants to go back and try some more of their Mexican Specialties.  I'd love to try their breakfast sometime.

So as you can see we mostly drove and ate our way across the delta.  Next weekend we are letting Joe and Carrie use our boat as a home base for playing with their ski boat so we are going to visit Coyote Point for the first time since June!  We plan to take the boat to Stockton on 8/20 for an overnight and to fill up with diesel at the Chevron station there, which has really good fuel prices. 

Delta Photos

making bacon!

Tiki J and Ada Helen leaving Willow Berm to anchor out at Threeriver Reach while we head to Oxbow for one night

The Mokelumne swing bridge (Hwy 12) opening for Steve and us as we head up the Mokelumne to Georgiana Slough to Oxbow Marina.  We had been told the bridge opened on the hour and on the :20 and :40 but itopened for us immediately without our having to even hail the bridge tender.

Matt cooling off at Oxbow

Joe checking our bow line.

the "Fun Island" in use (Kim and kids, Carrie on her float)

Pineapple Girl with our $50 pop up canopy.  Worked out great.

Matt getting ready to try water skiing

Another view of Pineapple Girl from the ski boat

The three boats on Threeriver Reach, from the ski boat as we prepare to pull Matt out of the water

About as close as Matt came to water skiing.  He gave up after four tries.  But he had fun!

A morning visitor in at Threeriver Reach

Passerby on the San Joaquin as we sat on Pineapple Girl. 

We were right of the Stockton deep water channel / San Joaquin River and we saw a few freighters slip by while we were there.  They move at a pretty good clip.  One caused all sorts of small bubbles to rise up out of the water all around us as it passed by.  Very Odd.

Saturday on the Delta

The sailboats got underway around ten am after some small struggles freeing anchors from the delta mud and weeds. We heard the other part of our group, who were in Rio Vista, heading out earlier. Hopefully everyone will meet up safely tonight in Benecia.
Scott's engine cooling water issue turned out to be due to an impressive collection of aquatic plants in his raw water intake hose. Matt said there were literally STICKS in there. Once the intake was cleared everything was fine.
We plan to stay one more night then head to willow berm to leave the boat there for August. We thought it would be wise to check our tanks and we were happy to find we still had half our water (about 100 gallons) and about 1/3 capacity left in the holding tank. Using paper plates and not showering certainly helps with the fresh water consumption! We've also been following the "if it's yellow..." adage in the heads. We have enough food to be able to stay out another month so one more night is definitely doable.
I have a bunch of pictures to upload and post once we are back to civilization with wi fi and such fineries.

Delta Friday

It has been a bit of an odd day as far as vacations go. We had lunch on Joe and Carrie's boat (left over BBQ pork sandwiches from wednesday night dinner, yummy) and after that Matt and Joe left to take Joe's new ski boat back to its slip on Bethel Island and move our car to Willow Berm.
Scott took the dinghy over to pick them up and they got back around four. Matt stopped by for a few minutes then went to Scott's boat to work on the motor with Scott and Joe. So I've been hanging out by myself for about five hours. I could have hung out with Kim and the kids or Carrie but I wanted to spend some time reading. Now that boredom has set in they are all in the water and I don't feel like putting on my swim suit and getting in. It is howling windy and I am hungry. Guess I'll go make some food and hope the "mens" are done soon...

Delta Thursday

At least I think it is Thursday...


Everyone who wanted to water ski has done so. Everyone else from our group left for a ride on the ski boat about two and a half hours ago leaving Matt and me in the anchorage to do... Nothing... In peace and quiet. Loving it... So relaxing. Too bad we have to go back to reality in a few days.

Joe water skiing with Matt driving the ski boat.  Carrie skiied Slalom style I think they called it, with one ski.
 

I made a movie of her actually skiing so all I have is this one picture of her before we pulled her out of the water.

Nudists!

Our friends' youngest son had decided he likes this middle of nowhere stuff and he is letting it all hang out. He says he is cooler that way. Matt, Joe and Carrie just got back from water skiing and Kim and Max are about to go for round two with Joe and Carrie.

Hump day in the Delta

Yesterday we went with the marina hoppers to Oxbow. We had a great pot luck dinner and lots of fun hanging out on the beautiful porch there. Today we filled up the water tank, emptied the holding tank and headed out for two or three nights of anchoring out with Joe and Carrie and Scott and Kim on threeriver reach.

We headed back South down Georgiana Slough. We thought the dinghy might tow better with the motor in the up position. Umm, not so much. We slowed to a stop, pulled it in and lowered the motor. Much better. Once we got back to the Mokelumne we hung a left then a quick right to follow the Mokelumne to little Potato Slough.

There is a huge marina just past the Hwy 12 bridge on little Potato Slough called Tower Park.

We contemplated pulling in for lunch at the restaurant there but decided to have tuna sandwiches and keep going. (we found out later that Joe, Carrie, Scott, Kim and kids were all there having lunch; they'd come over on the ski boat.  Oh well)

It is a bit nerve racking going through the sloughs as there are lots of shallow spots, sunken objects, weeds, "sunken objects", etc. We only kicked up mud once. Maybe twice... Ish

We passed a place called Herman and Helen's where Matt's family rented a houseboat a few times when he was a kid. He has a great story about crashing a houseboat into a bridge when he was 12 or 13 but I'll have to let him tell it.

Just past H&H there is a cable ferry. We waited for it to go across then motored over it's tow line.

That was slightly nerve wracking. We made it across without catching the line and getting slung backwards.
Once we were about to the San Joaquin deep water channel we started trying to contact the other folks who were already here. Come to find out they were off in Joe's new ski boat so we threw out the stern anchor and got a bow line into the tules by ourselves. We'd never done it before so it was rather entertaining but we managed not to hit Scott's boat. We are probably a little close to his boat but now that the other people just got back we will readjust things to have a little more separation.

We had bought one of those cheap pop up shade canopies and we have that set up on the aft deck. It is quite pleasant out sitting under that. Before the deck was too hot for bare feet. We definitely enjoyed getting in the water to cool off.


Now that everyone is back I have to go help get everything situated. Later!

Delta Monday

Nothing to do but lounge in the sun. Not too hot, gentle breeze... Ah... We are on the guest dock at Willow Berm. Beautiful marina.  Here is Ada Helen behind us on the dock.  That is a 78' houseboat behind her (for sale!)

Delta Week Begins!

We are up on the boat at Delta Bay Marina in Isleton, ready to start our 9 day adventure! I realized last night I had forgotten to do one thing I had told my boss I'd do before I left (hopefully that is all I forgot) so I brought the laptop out on the sundeck about 7:45 am. It is so peaceful out. There are a LOT of birds and they are just chirping away. Our friend Gene cruised by about 8:10, on his way up to a big festival in Petaluma with a concert tonight. Sounded like fun! He seems to have a big boat adventure with friends every couple of weeks, from what we have seen the past few weeks. Gotta love it!

There are a bunch of folks from Matt's work at the RV park across the street for a weekend retreat. I heard they will be smoking bacon on the Traegers and serving up bacon and eggs around 10am then we are heading out to Potato Slough for us to anchor and the folks that brought jet skis, ski boats and other small boats to play. It looked like quite a few of the folks did bring boats and jet skis. Of course there are always stories with that...

Last night three of the guys went to launch one of the boats at the launch ramp that is about a mile away. This is a super nice ski boat on an equally nice trailer. There had already been a minor parking lot accident while trying to hook the boat trailer to the tow vehicle but we won't get into that. So last night, whoever drove them down there backed the trailer in, shoved the boat off with two guys aboard and took off to head back to the party. Time passed, more time passed. The guys on the boat weren't back. I may have already mentioned cell phone service here is not very good so nobody could get in touch with the guys on the boat. Finally a call went through. The guys were still tied to the launch ramp because the boat battery was dead and the motor wouldn't start (boy does that sound familiar). This started a long conversation amongst the group as to what to do to help them. One of the guys had a portable charger but it was dead so he plugged it into charge and told the guys he'd be down there in about 30 mins with it to give them a jump. After about 15 mins the group tried to call the two guys again to check on them and nobody could get through. A few minutes later they walked up! They said someone else showed up at the launch ramp and wasn't able to launch with them tied up there so the fellow rounded up some jumper cables, pulled the battery out of his boat and gave them a jump start so they could get out of his way!

There is apparently quite a collection of boats and jet skis owned by group members on the other side of the store, we'll have to go take a look later on. It is about 8:30 now and still very calm, quiet and peaceful. There must be a herd of cattle close by because I hear what sure sounds like cows mooing and making all kinds of cow racket. Must be feeding time?!? But the birds are much louder and the calm is broken by the occasional loud boat going by in the river on the other side of the tule island behind the boat.

I didn't post any info or pictures from last weekend. All the pictures I took were of Joe bringing his boat in. They got here late Saturday and we'd had a pretty lazy day that day. We took the dinghy over to Owl Harbor and the nice slough over there and made the tour counter clockwise this time to get a different vantage point. It is really nice in the slough and there are all sorts of interesting boats to look at. We saw a boat called Coyote . (that is coyote "point", get it??) and we figured that had to be Nick Klusnick's old sailboat from where else, Coyote Point Yacht Club / marina. We stopped to talk to the folks on board and it was indeed the same owner who'd bought the boat from Nick years before. He said he'd raced on the boat with Nick for years prior to buying the boat from him and also mentioned he'd helped Nick bring a boat down from the PNW years prior. The boat they'd brought down was a beautiful Kadey Krogen "trawler" that puts our boat to shame. Nick owned the Krogen for a number of years and cruised it extensively before selling it to someone in the PNW. Well small world that it is we had actually seen Nick's old Krogen on our trip to Oakland Yacht Club last fall. The latest owners have brought it back to the bay area and keep it on the OYC docks. They were just a few slips down from us and the boat looks as beautiful as when it was brand new. The boating world is a small one, for sure!

After our dinghy ride we went to Spindrift for an afternoon snack and shared a huge plate of chicken nachos. The bartender / waiter who was working was super nice and we had a good time talking to him and some of the other folks in the bar area. We got back in time to help Joe and Carrie into their slip and hang out with them for a bit before they headed to Happy Harbor for dinner. Sunday we didn't do much as we had to head back around 2 to get Joe and Carrie back for an event they were committed to. Our big adventure for the day was taking out the trash. We decided to go by dinghy and take a tour of the Delta Bay and Spindrift docks. There are so many unique and interesting boats here, it is quite fun to cruise around slowly and check them all out...

The wind is picking up a bit so it seems like we might be in for a windy day. We've been having a bit of a heat wave and it is supposed to be cooler today so maybe this is the cooler weather moving in... by the end of the week we are supposed to be into triple digits so it seems like we will have a little bit of everything this week!

Second Weekend at the Delta

Joe and Carrie came up and stayed on Tiki J.  Happy Harbor is the place to go for breakfast.  $4.99 and it tastes good!

this is our marina from the river:

 farther down Brannan:

 Some folks having fun on threeriver reach:

 wildlife:

 Saving Tule Habitat (seemed like there was a lot of it to us!)

 To avoid arrest.... at the Hilton's place:

 Just a little house boat along the bank, check out the water slide:

 Ah, relaxing, making hamburgers for lunch back at the slip:

 nice little place on the river:

 bottom cleaning services, will work for crackers:

 now this is REALLY relaxing...

 while these folks get their enjoyment with a little dinghy ride!