Night Boating II

Two weeks after explaining why we haven't been out at night in the delta... We were out at night on the delta.

We'd planned to take a long weekend last weekend to anchor out with some sailor friends... Then spent Friday at a funeral instead of anchored out. Took the runabout out to visit our friends Saturday and found out they were headed to our marina for the night so we made plans for the ten of us to take our ski boat and one other ski boat to dinner that night. Departure time was pushed back as it took them awhile to get settled in and cleaned up but the timing still worked out to get home before dark... Except we had to wait about an hour and a half for a table for ten at Giusti's in Walnut Grove. Not too shocking to have to wait for a big group... The food was fantastic...

So it was dark when we left to come home. Very dark. No moon dark.

There are certain running lights required at night and one of our lights, the 360 degree white light at the stern, does not work. We'd brought a suction cup mount battery powered one from our dinghy (that we've had for two years with no occasion to use) "just in case". The other boat had a spot light and we had a chart plotter with depth sounder. They went first with their light and we started off back down the river, backtracking the way we'd come.

For some reason the stern light decide to make a swim for it shortly after we left. Luckily someone noticed right away. It was actually pretty cool, not only did in float but it floated with the light pointed up. We went back and easily retrieved it. We had a small piece of line we tied to it to tether it to the boat after the light over board drill. The boat we were following noticed we'd turned around and waited for us.

A short time later we were passed by two boats traveling the same direction at what sure seemed like high speed. It was really hard to see their wakes to take them at a good angle. We were all in our life vests for safety and weren't scared, it was more weird to see their lights woosh by.

We then had an uneventful stretch where we spent time admiring the stars and noticing how the dippers were visible from completely different sides of the boat as we wound down the slough. We were able to maintain a consistent distance from the other boat by listening to their music. They have huge speakers on their wakeboard "tower" and when the music got louder we knew they'd slowed down so we would too.

Once we got close to willow berm we saw the lights of another boat headed our way. As I mentioned, we have a chartplotter. The boat we were following was over a shallow spot in the middle of the river so we were hanging to the left a bit. The other boat went right between us. It was probably at least a 30' boat, moving at a good clip. In my opinion, too fast for the conditions (I.e. PITCH DARK!!!).

We dropped off our passengers shortly after and were very happy to be back at our slip safely after an exciting trip home. The return took about twice as long as the outbound trip as we were feeling our way along in the dark. We slept pretty well after a long day on the water!

Maiden Voyage Take Two

We picked up our new to us runabout last weekend in Fairfield and brought it straight to the launch ramp. It was fairly difficult to start but once we got going we got right up on a plane. The motor was hesitating though and ended up stalling. We went back to the ramp and asked the (valet launching) tractor driver for a mechanic recommendation then had him put the boat in our storage unit. We had friends up with their little boat so we had plenty to entertain us.

Matt called the mechanic Monday and he said he'd pick the boat up Monday and have the boat back to us Friday. We called him on our way up Friday and he was in the process of rebuilding the carb. He said they'd have it ready for us Saturday for sure. We didn't hear back from them Friday so Saturday morning when we went in to town for groceries we gave him a call. They were still working on some last thing but he thought it would be just a couple more hours. We stopped by his shop, which is really cool. It's in a large warehouse and there were lots of cool boats and cars inside.

We went back to PG and whipped up some bacon and eggs on the new stove and got our stuff together for a ride on the little boat. When Rick called to tell us he was on his way, we were on the road in seconds flat. We met him at the launch ramp and hopped in. He said he'd just wait while we did a loop to make sure all was ok. And the boat was still hesitating! We went back and picked him up and he drove it. He said the only thing he hadn't done was a fuel pump so he'd have his guy pick one up and install it there.

We went back to PG for a bit then came back and waited for the mechanic. We were tied up at the dock at the ramp and there was this kid on the dock on the other side of the ramp, waiting for his family to get ready to go out on their boat. He started softly chanting the name of our boat. Up until this point we'd planned in changing the name, but after hearing this kid chanting "Hinky Dink, Hinky Dink, Hinky Dink" Matt wants to keep the name.  It was also pretty funny listening to his mom scold him "now you be still, you stop it, you stand still, you KNOW you cain't SWIM."

The mechanic finally got there and he wasn't successful finding a fuel pump so he tried removing the secondary fuel filter (it had been the only fuel filter but they added a larger one earlier in the fuel delivery system) and that did the trick. She runs great now.

We went for a short spin yesterday and figured we'd play on it must of the day today. Well we woke up to howling winds so we pretty much frittered away the morning. Then a friend texted that she and her husband were up in the delta looking marinas so we invited them over and we all took the boat over to the Lighthouse for lunch. We figured after lunch we'd drop them off then run the boat back to the launch ramp/ storage.

So we went back to PG and the wind was dying down, yea! We ended up cruising around for about an hour after we dropped our friends. It was still a bit windy but not too bad and not too choppy.  Though on the way back, into the wind, I felt like the skin on my face was getting pushed back like you'd see in a comedy movie!  The boat is running great! Overall we're very happy with the new addition and looking forward to having lots if fun on Hinky Dink.  Or Hinking around in our Dink.