Lake Powell Adventure, Pt 2

Last week we began our houseboating adventure with a couple of challenges, but we managed. This week we pick up our boating on Day 6, the Sunday before the 4th of July. Interesting things always happen over holiday weekends, and this was no exception.

Day 6

July 3rd dawns with the usual peaceful beauty only inland waters seem to possess. It’s short-lived however, as the wind picks up just before 7am, depositing a little chop across the water and leaving our girls to cut their kayaking a bit short on their morning tour.

I do the usual tending of lines and go through the motions once again to clear the generator error codes and attempt a restart. It fires up once again, but repeated error codes leave the uneasy prospect that one of those times it will simply refuse to kick over. Ah, the uncertainty of adventure.

The wind continues most of the day, giving us a constant rocking – not all together pleasant, but not altogether unwelcome, either. The wind is a nice relief from the heat. Still, we find ourselves in the water every bit as much as out of it. A drink of some kind, even if it’s only water, is a prerequisite.

The ever present little green bugs, thousands of them, are harmless, but you need to develop a tolerance for ignoring them. They like to populate door and window screens, unused chairs, cushions, bed sheets – almost any unoccupied surface. Like I said, they’re a nuisance and you have to learn to ignore them. They also like the laptop I’m on. I guess the term is co-existence.

As it’s 99 today, I plan to start the generator for running the air conditioning about 8pm and run it through to 11pm. We typically run the generator a couple hours in the morning, then 2-3 hours in the evening before bed to both fix meals and cool the cabin before bed. The refrigerator seems to generate a ton of heat, making the salon and galley almost unbearable. The one relief is a ceiling fan.

I finally cut the generator at 11 and open a couple of windows. The wind has kept up through most of the night, so we are rocked to sleep, sometimes more than gently.

Day 7

Morning dawns nearly identical to the rest. No wind, the sun highlighting the canyons and monuments with the same intensity in the same way from the same angle as every day we’ve been here. It’s still. The tranquility and solitude are probably the most welcome qualities of being on the water in the early morning. I consider it one of the greatest respites from civilization going; meditation without meditating because it’s given to you, all you have to do is accept it.

We have fallen into routines now. Coffee, toast and a quick dippy-in, as my Auntie Margaret used to say. We will do a bit of reading on the aft deck or up top, and then consider a stint in the kayaks or on the paddleboard. Those around us begin to waken. The early birds hit the water with their skidoos and wakeboarders leave for treasured secret waters.

We expect a busy day what with it being the 4th of July, but are pleasantly surprised that people seem to have blown most of their pent up energy over the weekend. There’s still plenty of activity, but for some reason it seems a bit less frenetic.

Janice and I take a leisurely paddle in the cove, around its rock outcroppings and through its shallows, listening to only the sound of our kayak and paddles amiably slicing the water. There’s nothing else – no birds, no bugs, no people, just an occasional whisper of wind, a touch of a ripple, and a fish breaking the surface for a snack. It’s wonderful.

A couple hours later we’re back at the boat. I do my daily service of the black water tank with a bioactive enzyme treatment and fire up the generator to charge the inverters and use the stove. Sheryl cooks poached eggs and toast for me (not sure why I deserved my own breakfast) while the girls have a veggie and cheese scramble.

Then it’s read, play cards, swim, float, and deal with the heat. We go as low key as possible. We’ve settled into a rhythm, and watch the world float by without a care.

Fireworks begin just before sunset. Once again, we are surprised so few campsites are participating. We can see some works firing over the hill in another finger of the bay, but there are only two or three boats really setting things off in our cove, even though there are probably 13 or 14 of us scattered around. It’s very dark here, so much so you can see the stardust clouds in the Milky Way. It makes the fireworks that much more spectacular as their explosions echo down the canyon walls and light up the stone monuments like lightning. By eleven o’clock it’s over and we hit the hay for a peaceful slumber. Tomorrow that won’t be the case.

Day 8

We’ve decided to head back to the marina, gas up if there’s time and anchor out nearby or simply berth at the dock for the final night. Either way will give us an early start to miss the crowds and get away unscathed by any chaos. From our spot near Kimball Point we cross to Labyrinth Canyon where Janice takes one of the kayaks up into the narrow rock fingers to explore. There’s nowhere to anchor, so I just stabilize our boat’s position near the mouth of these fingers while she tootles around for about an hour. Clouds are building around us, indicating there may be thunderstorms later this afternoon. For now, things are relatively peaceful with only a light wind.

With their ski boat to retrieve them, twenty-somethings are jumping off twenty-foot rocks nearby. When they’re finished, they realize they’ve lost contact with their mother ship and ask us if we can contact them via radio. Unfortunately, in this canyon there is no radio reception. They’ll have to find them on their own. It pays to always have a full tank of gas and a rendezvous point. After they wander off, I shake my head and remark to Janice at how little people think ahead. Just a bit of planning on the water will save you a lot of grief, pain and suffering.

With Janice back on board, we head to Antelope Canyon. This proves to be one of the trip’s highlights. On our way there, we see some young men with real nerve who are jumping from about 50-feet up. Now that takes some kahunas. Although Antelope is narrow with 150 foot cliff walls on both sides, it’s beautiful, mostly sheltered from the wind, and still blessed with deep water. I have found the boat is much more responsive using only throttles to steer, so I leave the wheel straight up and weave the boat through these very tight corners using only thrust from the engines. It works fantastically well, and I thank my experience as a young man piloting uncle Neil’s twin screw yacht many years ago.

We spend about an hour winding our way up and back into Antelope. It’s a must-do for anyone who’s on this lake. From there we head back to Wahweap Marina, our home base at the southwest end of the lake. The lake narrows considerably here and the sandstone cliffs are high and imposing. Water chop increases to a chaos of white caps as both the wind and boats generate waves that just bounce back and forth from one cliff to the other across the channel.

We see a couple of kayakers making their way up the lake along the southern cliff. One pair doesn’t seem to have a handle on things, and sure enough Sheryl spots them going over. I have limited visibility from the helm, but Sheryl tells me it looks like their having trouble, so we make a hard turn to port and trundle over to see if we can offer some assistance. When we get there it’s evident they have no experience, are not prepared, and have made some very poor choices. Man and wife in the water clinging to their sit-on (versus a more stable sit-in) kayak with their dog!? At least all of them are wearing lifejackets. They, and the unrelated couple who are trying to help from two other kayaks, speak little English.

I’m manning the helm, so am relying on Janice and Sheryl to communicate both with the couple in the water and me as I try to maneuver the swim step on the stern to them and keep it there. With the wind whipping about, all the cross wave action and the cliffs only 40-50 feet away, it’s no easy task. The most amazing part, however, is how unorganized, incapable and yet uncooperative these people are to taking instruction for getting them onboard. First, they wanted to get the dog on board. And the whole time, the girl is asking for anyone to “get my white bag, get my white bag!” They were also overly concerned about their backpack, probably because it had ID, phones and such in it. Still, pay attention to what we’re trying to do here, as in save your lives you dumb asses! We can collect your shit after you’re on board!

The other kayakers only confuse things by trying to convince them they could get back onto their kayak from the water. No, they can’t! They have no experience or skills to do that! Shut the F up and allow us to get them on board where we can collect everything, get them organized and then decide what they want to do while safely on board. STOP BEING STUPID!! And stop acting like you have all day, because you don’t and neither do we!

I’m not going to jeopardize the safety of those on my boat by putting it in danger – those cliffs don’t care about any of us and you kayakers between our 50-foot boat and the sandstone walls aren’t paying any attention to that. None of these people have a grip!

It’s so frustrating trying to save MORONS from themselves!  I had to circle around a couple of times to stay close while keeping the props away from their dumb asses. Janice and Sheryl finally get them on board. The couple in the water show zero sense of urgency – obviously shellshocked and with no concept of the risks or what to do. You can see it in their eyes and actions. They don’t respond to commands, they’re moving slowly, they’re disoriented, and they’re concerned about stuff rather than their own lives. Just really stupid in every respect, and a perfect illustration of how and why people drown or die of hypothermia. Lack of survival skills, lack of awareness, lack of planning, taking unnecessary risks – like bringing a dog in a kayak while on a body of water where the weather can radically change in literally 60 seconds. Leave your pets at home! Dipshits!

I have, as you can tell, no kind words for people who have no experience, do not plan or prepare by practicing even elementary skills, and do not respect the incredibly dangerous powers of nature. Even a beautiful sunny day holds its surprises if you are not careful and aware.

We have done our good deed for the day, but who and how they will be collected from us also creates a complication. For some strange insurance reason, we are not allowed to drop them at our marina’s dock; the marina they set off from must come get them. We continue on to Wahweap Marina. Once nearly there, the Antelope Marina chase boat spots us and comes along side. We orient stern-to-stern so these people and their kayak can most easily transfer to the Antelope boat. The problem is they again act as if they have all day. It takes them a good 7-8 minutes to do what should take a minute, two max. In the meantime, our marina pilot has also come on board. He helps with the transfer. I try to keep our boat off the rocks while the wind and current push us there and these goofballs dillydally.

I’m getting very anxious. We are getting irreversibly close to the rocks. I yell at them to hurry it up. I judiciously use reverse engines a couple of times, but I need to be careful as I don’t want to upset everyone’s balance at the stern. With our pilot’s additional help, we finally get everyone transferred. He runs up to the helm, jumps to and rams the engines into reverse. We pass knowing glances. I comment on how F’ing slow they were to transfer and he says, “Yeah, I was getting nervous about the rocks.”

I said, “Yeah, I was trying to balance the two.” He said, “Yeah, I know. We’re good now though.”

Adventure finally over, it’s now too late to gas up and dump black water, so we make our way into the marina and our pilot docks into our slip – all the while losing the port engine again a couple of times. I told him, “Yup, it’s been doing that since we left port.” He says, “This is the second one today that’s done this!”

We decide we’re just going to spend our last night dockside and get an early start to St. George, Utah in the morning. Thunderstorms and lightning have also helped make our decision easy. Plus, Sheryl has never seen Bryce Canyon National Park, so we figure spending a night in St. George and then driving through Bryce will be a nice little plus for her.

Day 9, July 6

While we don’t need to have our boat back on dock until 3pm, we all think it best to get out first thing, avoid the rush and have a nice breakfast in Page, AZ, the supporting town just south of Wahweap and adjacent to the Glen Canyon Dam. We have a good breakfast at the Ranch House Grill before giving the GMC Yukon a wash down and heading out on the 150 miles to Bryce Canyon. The Ranch House is a popular, down home eatery. While there we see a Willie Nelson lookalike heading out the door, complete with American flag-beaded murse. With a tanned, weathered face, long, grey ponytails, cowboy hat, boots, worn denim and a decorated Levi jacket he looks like Willie’s perfect Arizona brother. He’s gone before I can grab a picture with him.

Bryce is at its usual spectacular best. I’ve been here three times, but never during summer and it’s more crowded than I’m used to. One day we’ll come here prepared to do some real hiking. After our tour, we head into St. George for dinner at the Wood Ash Rye in the Advenire Hotel downtown. We start with the charcuterie board. The women split the Pappardelle pasta while I opt for the duck tacos with a mix of Mexican-inspired spices and sauces. It’s all finished off with an Erath Pinot Noir and the house-made mango sorbet. Absolutely lovely. We spend the night in one of our beautifully decorated, two-bedroom, St. George Worldmark timeshares.

Day +1

Today is the long drive – about 670 miles worth to Boise, ID. Along the way two white cars blow by us probably doing 95-100mph. While I wouldn’t say they were racing, per se, there appears to be at least a casual connection. A few minutes up the road it comes to a bad end, at least for one of them.

We’re rounding a fairly tight left-hand sweeper when mid-curve reveals a car/camper combination off on the right shoulder. I immediately lift and begin hitting the brakes, as people are standing around – never a good sign. On the inside shoulder, there are four or five people milling about near one of the SUVs that is now spun sideways and flat on its roof. No one appears hurt and it looks as if everyone has crawled out the car windows. No smoke, no fire. Very lucky, and obviously driving beyond their abilities. Once again, unskilled people doing stupid things. The second white SUV is nowhere in sight. Nice of them to stop. A couple more miles up the road come a string of State Troopers with lights on. We know where they’re headed.

Once in Twin Falls we stop for dinner. We find a neat little brew pub downtown, Milner’s Gate. They brew a wide assortment of beers in a brick edifice with a contemporary restoration. It’s about 5:30 and the temp is in the mid-80s, so we eat outside on the shaded terrace. Sheryl makes a summery choice of a nice Cobb salad, Janice has the excellent Thai-spiced baby back ribs and I opt for the locally grown Kobe beef flank steak with chimichurri sauce. The Thai ribs are our unanimous favorite.

From there, we take a 15-minute side trip to nearby Shoshone Falls. I’ve never been and although since it’s summer the waterflow is low, it’s still worth the trip. Then, it’s the 120-mile dash to Boise and a well-deserved rest.

Day +2

The last day of travels! Our goal is an extended stop in Yakima, WA for a late lunch and a little wine tasting. Before we opt for the 2^nd Street Grill, however, there is one more shot of reality when we see the twisted, burned out, still smoldering wreckage of a tractor trailer rig in the median under an overpass south of Pendleton. Always sobering to see carnage of that magnitude….

We’ve been to the 2nd St Grill a few times now and it never disappoints for trendy, upscale sportsbar food. And the portions are generous. A Cobb, Apple Valley salad, a Reuben sandwich and three glasses of Gilbert Left Bank red blend later and we are in search of a tasting room. Covid has drastically cut the number of tasting rooms in town, as only three remain. The rest are out at the many surrounding vineyards. We opt for AntoLin Cellars near the old re-purposed train station. They have a nice port Sheryl gets a bottle for her husband, Jim.

The rest of the way home is uneventful. We all find we’re still getting our landlegs back. Even now we find ourselves unconsciously swaying with the boat, but give us a day – we’ll all be back to normal, remembering the experience of as all the boat rental people say, “This is an adventure, not a vacation!”