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!