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!

First Weekend in the Delta

I must first admit how anxious I was about making this trip.  This would be the farthest we'd ever gone on this boat and I was apprehensive about something going wrong.  We have the unlimited towing plan from Boat US so we knew who we'd call if anything DID go wrong, but still... 

Our original plan was to break up the journey in Pittsburg and then finish with a short jaunt to the Delta the next morning.  As departure day neared, we were able to leave a day earlier than we originally planned and we decided we'd only go as far as Angel Island the first day, hang out there with some friends, then head on the next day, whether to Pittsburg or all the way, we weren't sure.

We got up bright and early and left CP for Angel Island at 7:30 AM.  We'd gotten everything all ready the night before, including emptying the holding tank and getting the dinghy motor off the dinghy onto the back of PGII (using our new dinghy motor lift and dinghy motor bracket).  As we left, some neighbors in a sail boat were patiently waiting for the tide to turn so they'd have enough water under their keel to get out of their slip.  Even in our shallower draft power boat, we kicked up a little mud as we left. 

We had a great ride up through the south bay and we got to Angel Island around 10.  The tide was turning and we were getting a good push towards the delta.  Conditions were so good that we decided to keep going. Why not?

We had an uneventful ride through San Pablo Bay, which can be choppy and nasty but we were early with the wind and current with us so it was smooth and we saw speeds as high as 9.5 knots (yes that is slow, but we are a trawler and that is making good time by our standards).  Partway along the Carquinez Strait we were passed by a large cargo ship.  We checked out the data on it in our AIS system and found it was heading to Pittsburg so we now had someone to follow so we'd know we were going the right way.  It is a pretty easy trip, though the actual turn to Pittsburg is a little tricky as it really doesn't look like the channel goes anywhere as you make the turn.  In fact, some idiot in a really nice power boat blew right by us, close to us, just as we were turning into the channel.  He was so close and going so fast that he rocked us pretty hard. This is EXTREMELY bad form to hit someone with your wake like that.  He looked over and gave us a smile and wave as he passed us.  He was obviously completely oblivious to what he had done to us and that he had just blown by the channel.  He saw us turn and quickly did a 180 to follow us down the channel...

I had written more but lost several paragraphs.  I will have to rewrite it later as I don't have time right now!!

Ok I am back now and hopefully can remember what I had written before and lost... so we had turned into the channel to Pittsburg (New York Slough) with the jerk who'd just passed us at high speed now behind us.  Well we both slowed down pretty quick as that container ship we'd been following now had two tugs on him and we weren't really sure what they were trying to do or where they were putting him.  The docks appeared to be off to the right but at the moment they were smack in the middle of the channel.  There appeared to be room to go around on either side but we weren't too keen to try it as we did not want to get in the way.  Our "friends" that had passed us before were impatient folks and they passed us again (slowly this time!) and approached the nearest tug.  They seemed to speak with the tug operator, then they turned around and passed the freighter on the other side.  We followed them around and were soon back to cruising speed.  At this point we had decided to continue on to our slip we had reserved at Delta Bay Marina in the Delta as it was still early so it didn't seem worthwhile to stay a night in Pittsburg.

At this point we saw some nice boats heading the other way, including this one, "Loafer", which friends on the Trawler Forum identified as a 1930 Stephens Trunk Cabin Cruiser.

Before long we under the Antioch bridge and could consider ourselves to be in the Delta.  I decided to "check in" on facebook.  It searched for nearby locations and came back with "no nearby locations" so I added the location "no nearby locations--welcome to the delta".  We had quite a while of quiet, calm cruising on the wide and smooth San Joaquin river.  there are channel markers as is a deep water channel that runs all the way to the port of Stockton and the edges can get shallow where the current dumps off silt, especially at the inside of curves.  Also there is vegetation growing from the bottom of floating along and it tends to be thicker around the edges, so best to stay in the channel.  The river and the channel curve and swerve and we were enjoying checking the charts and chartplotter for the marks and making sure of where we were and where we were going.

We passed a lot of interesting abandoned looking vessels, bizarre "encampments" up on in the tule on the islands and quite a few creative boat modification projects.  The delta is quite an interesting place. 

We finally got to our marina about 3:45 if I recall correctly.  We saw the white roofs of the boat sheds awhile before we got there.  We still had a big S turn in the river to get through before we were actually there.  The marina is right off the river, with tule islands between it and the fast water. 

We weren't 100% sure where to go around the tule islands but there were big signs for Delta Bay that seemed to be directing us between two so that is where we went through.  The depth sounder was going lower, lower, lower and I was getting very nervous.  (I was driving at this point).  We kept going and after seeing a pretty low number, maybe 5 feet I can't recall, the numbers started going back up.  I handed the controls over to Matt and started getting out fenders and docklines.

We'd been warned that there is a lot of current running through the marina so we were mentally prepared to be pushed sideways as we tried to dock.  As we got close to our slip we saw there was a Sea Doo parked in it.  Now when I hear Sea Doo I think Jet Ski.  This was no Jet Ski, but a small water ski boat with seating for four and a big tow arch.  Someone hopped off the boat in the next slip and moved the Sea Doo, then helped us dock.  We are SO glad he was there and he helped us.  The current really swept us and if he had not been there we'd probably be wrapped around the shed roof supports!  We were very relieved to have made it all the way in about 8 1/2 hours with no incidents!

We walked across the street to Spindrift Restaurant for dinner and had a decent meal for a good price (at least by Bay Area standards!!). I had the steak and lobster tail special for $19.95 and had half a steak to take home.  We ended up having it for lunch later. 

The next day, Scott and Kim came up on Tiki J.  They'd spent a night at Angel Island to break up the trip as they could not leave until late that day.  We got them tied up in the uncovered slip next to us.  Before they arrived we had taken the dinghy out and had breakfast at Korth's Pirates Lair and checked out Potato Slough.  There were a lot of boats out there and we talked to a really nice woman from Richmond Yacht Club who it sounded like was the ring leader of the group.  One of the people had a plane tied to the back of a boat.  She said he'd flown up from nearby Discovery Bay.

We went on another dinghy trip with Scott and Kim the next day.  Their dinghy goes faster than ours but they were towing their boys in a big inner tube type thing (with a bottom) so that evened things up a bit.  We decided to check out nearby Owl Harbor Marina.  There was a slough along the way where they could go fast and give the boys a fun ride.  The kids were hooting and hollering with big grins on their faces.  We were soon in the marina and had to slow down.  We knew the slough the marina was in was going to come to a dead end at a bridge but we weren't sure if we'd be able to come back down the other side of an island in the middle.  We came around the top of the island to see where we'd end up.  It was a quite, deserted section of slough with nobody else around, though it was alongside a road at the top of the berm.  The kids were yelling for Scott and Kim to go fast again so they did, but one of the boys had moved to the front of the tube and it started to submarine and fill with water.  That really got the kids screaming.  We pulled alongside and started scooping out water.  Scott tried to speed up again and the kids started yelling about the water again.  So at this point they pulled their dinghy next to the tube, got the kids into the dinghy and Kim stood up to try and dump the water out.  Unfortunately the tube filled with water outweighed her and she ended up executing a nice dive into the slough.  At this exact moment some guy was driving down the berm in his pick up and yelled "Heck Yeah! Heck Yeah!"  Kim resurfaced, laughing and smiling and was soon back on the dinghy.  We scooped out a bunch of water from the tube and then Scott dumped the rest.  Only the older boy was willing to get back in and he was soon being towed fast and had a big grin on his face.  

We had to go under a small bridge and were then back in a marina and had to slow down.  There were tons of people down on their boats, hanging out and enjoying the day.  There was a big group in the water swimming and some guys on this absolutely gigantic float.  They said it was from Costco and I think Scott is going to see if he can find one.  Once we were back at our boats we made lunch with that leftover steak and leftover shrimp from our barbecue the night before, then we got in the water with our floats and hung out off the back of the boat for a few hours.  It was incredible.  The water feels cold for about the first half a second, then it feels great.  you don't even need a towel when you get out, you aren't cold.

We were sad to leave Monday but we were so exhausted from all the sun and fun that it was just as well to get back to reality.  We left the boat there and got a ride back.  We will be back Friday!