Taco-Blenders, Less Than Awesome, Boating Adventure Thread

@AZBoatHauler suggested I post up some stuff about my boat. Seeing as this is a site dedicated to the BEST trucks on the planet, and boats have no business being here, I thought, why not! Prepare to be bored to tears and completely underwhelmed.

PART ONE:

Here’s a little background on how this obsession all came about. Back in roughly 1993 a buddy and I were salmon fishing on the Sacramento River. It was a cold, drizzly, November day and we were out in my 16’ Western, open aluminum boat and we were not having much fun. I spotted this cool looking boat up the river a ways. Having never seen one before we puttered up there to check it out. It was a C-Dory 22’ Angler with a camper canvas covering the cockpit. The folks in there were running a small propane heater and were all comfy warm, and dry. I said to myself “Man, I could definitely get behind that setup!” and that one day I would have a C-Dory.

A few years later we moved to AZ, had another kid, and life got in the way of everything boating, although, the C-Dory was always in the back of my mind. Then one day around ‘03/’04 I stumbled across the C-Brats.com forum, which got me dreaming again. I thought “Man, since the Mrs. and I love the water, once I retire, one of these would be a great way to travel around the US”. The Mrs. was definitely “onboard”, so to speak. Every once in a while I would check the C-Brats site, catch up on the threads, and take a look at the boats for sale by owner.

Fast forward to July 4th, 2019. We have a tradition of spending the 4th at Patagonia lake an hour or so south of us. We hang at the lake all day then head into the little town of Patagonia for dinner and fireworks. Well, when we got home late that night, I thought I’d check the C-Brats site since I hadn’t been on there for quite some time. There was an ad posted for a 22 cruiser at an incredible price. Looking at the ad a bit closer I saw it had been posted for almost 2 days (these boats get snapped up pretty fast when they hit the market) so, surely it must be gone. I thought, “What the heck, I got nothing to lose, I’ll send the guy an email”. The Mrs. was long gone to bed so I sent her a text with a link to the ad, “Hey Hon, saw this C-Dory last night. Might be the one. Probably already claimed but, if not, should we go after?” She replied, "ABSOLUTELY!", she was all in! A few years earlier than planned but, hey, why not.

Well, incredibly enough, I was the first to contact the guy (we’ll call him David, since that’s his real name). I couldn’t believe freakin it!!! He sent some photos in his email reply and I sent funds to hold the boat until we could get out there. We’re in Tucson AZ and the boat was in Waynesville OH. Gee, only 1,900 miles away.

A little bit about David. Freaking SUPER nice guy! David held the boat for us for an entire month until we could get out to Ohio to pick it up. Unbelievable! The boat is a 1989 and he was the second owner and had bought it in 1990. They had kept it in incredible shape for the 30 years they owned it.

Anyhow, the boat is a 1989 C-Dory 22’ Cruiser. These are not fancy pants, luxury cruisers. They are built to be very rugged, very utilitarian, easy to fix, easy to mod, easy to tow, etc. This is just the way I like things. It has a place to sleep (V-Berth), dinette that coverts to another berth, alcohol stove, sink, porta potty, cabinets/storage, 20 gallon fresh water tank, and a few other things to make it a comfortable camper.

The boat was repowered in ’09 with a 90 hp ETEC. They didn’t use it much after the repower due to a light plane crash and some other medical issues (not crash related), so the engine only had 38 hours on it when we got it.

Here are the pics David sent when I first inquired about the boat. A couple of days later he sent me about a hundred pics of every inch of this thing. I'll spare you the agony of having to look at those.

 

PART TWO:

After responding to the ad on July 4th, we finally left Tucson on Aug 1st and, 1,900 miles later, showed up at the owners house/farm on Aug 3rd. We spent the 2 nights on the road in the back of the Tundra. . I really can’t say enough nice things about David and his wife. Their hospitality to these complete strangers (us) was overwhelming. We stayed a couple of nights on their property (one in the truck and one in the boat), used their shower, ate some of their food, drank some wine, shared stories around a camp fire, etc, etc. Wonderful people and we’re fortunate to be able to call them friends.

Here we are with the boat at David’s place. This was shortly after we got there.



The day after we arrived I gave the boat a thorough inspection and we took it out to a lake a few miles from their home for a little sea trial. ALL SYSTEMS GO!!! We’re going to finally have the boat I’ve been dreaming about for 20+ years!! I have to say, I was more than a little bit excited.


The next day I got everything secured and ready to go. Jacked up the trailer, checked and adjusted the wheel bearings, pumped some grease, checked brakes and fluid, etc, etc. We hooked her up to the Tundra and headed to the bank to get the David the rest of his cash. Once that business was done we hit the road, homeward bound for Tucson.





I had preselected some lakes to stop at overnight along the route we had planned to use to get back to Tucson. This was the FIRST stop, Carlyle Reservoir in Illinois, and first splash with our new to us C-Dory. We got a slip with electric for $20 for the night, cooked some dinner on the dock, and that's where we spent the first night. It was AWESOME!







The second night was spent a some dumpy marina on Grand Lake O the Cherokees in OK. The lake was pretty nice but the marina was a friggen HOLE!!! Had dinner at some crappy casino and lived thru some hellacious thunderstorm, with the bonus of tornado sirens going off, late that night. For some reason this is the only pic I have from that stop.





From there we headed to the Dallas TX region. We were going to stay on the water again but the marina had nothing for us. We found a state campground near the lake and that's where we spent night three, boaterhoming!



The next morning we headed west. The Mrs. wanted to stop at Balmorhea State Park and swim in the springs there, so that's what we did. From there we headed to Van Horn TX where we got a room for night four at the historic Hotel El Capitan. SUPER nice place, with great food. I highly recommend a stay there if you're unfortunate enough to have landed in Van Horn TX. (Sorry, no pics. I was deathly ill by this time in the trip and just wanted to DIE.)


Dying, and just wanting to get home, we pressed on to Tucson the next morning. Pretty uneventful except for the times I'd pull over so I could open the door and hurl out of the side of the truck.

Finally!!! 2,000 miles later, dirty truck and dirty boat, we're home, safe and sound with our new C-Dory! Yay!!!

 

PART THREE:

It's now October and we've had the boat at home for a couple months and haven't taken it out due to, well, life. I have been getting out there and doing little projects, mods, upgrades, and generally just fiddle farting around to make things the way I want them. Just sitting in the cockpit, drinking beer, seems to occupy quite a bit of my time. This can be good, and bad, I guess.



Murica!


Sooooooooo, my Billy Bad A$$ son is getting ready to deploy for the first time and I decided we're going to spend some father/son Q time together before he leaves, whether he likes it or not. He flies in helicopters and shoots big guns while saving people. We're very proud of him and love him to death.

This is him at work.



The plan is to head to Apache Lake for a few days of doing manly things. Which translated means drinking beer and rum, eating lots of good food, while pretty much doing nothing.











One of the best things about owning a boat like this is the ability to just get away. You're not restricted to a campground with barking dogs, loud music, 2am parties, BLM protesters, etc, etc... Just find a nice, quite place somewhere and drop the hook for the night.





I think we both had a good time.

Several months later, home safe and sound. Yay!

 

great story, and really cool looking boat! congrats @Taco-Bender!

 

Awesome story and awesome boat. Thank your son for his service. Is he a PJ? Also radiant red tundra best color.

 

Thank you Sir

Thank you too Sir I'll let him know.

The boy is what they now call a "Special Mission Aviator". Essentially, he's a CSAR Flight Engineer/Gunner on the HH-60 Pave Hawk. He loves his job.

And, YES! Radiant Red is the best, and fastest, color.

 

Thank you for the great story, I’m really starting to like this site better more and more every day, so nice to hear that you had a great time with your boat, I want to buy a boat but I’m looking for more of a ski boat but the boat that you have is excellent, it’s making me think about a different choice

 

CSARs are as you said a bunch of billy bad asses. Tell him from a former TACP to give a 100% and then some.

 

Tundra and a C-Dory, great combo! Looks like you found a classic. Hope to bump into you on C-Brats - Yakmandu

 

PART FOUR:

Fast forward to April 2020. Wow! Time flies when you're NOT having fun on your boat. Typical, life/work/adulting getting in the way of the serious stuff.

My wife runs her own business and it's tough for her to break away without some long range planning. Me, I work for the FED government and know how totally non-essential I really am. I could not be at work for a month, and have, and nobody would miss me. I like it!!

Anyhow, we FINALLY managed to get away on the boat for a couple of nights. We were intending to go to Apache but both roads into the lake we're closed due to rock slides. If 2020 was a lake it would be Apache Lake. They have had a HORRIBLE year this year.

So, down we went to our little Patagonia lake.





Again, we just find a place away from the campground, cook some food, have some adult beverages, relax and just do our thing.

Like this Disneyland Jungle Cruise. Nice and peaceful.







Maybe do a little hiking, or some paddle boarding.





I think one of the best things about getting away like this is, usually, we find ourselves without cell service. It's a nice break.

Anyhow, we had a great few days away and are looking forward to our next getaway on the mighty C-Dory.

 

Nothing wrong with a ski boat, for sure. If we were closer to water when our kids were growing up l would have bought one. And, it would have been an old school Correct Craft with the Holman Moody Ford 289. BAD A$$!!!

TACP!!! You Sir, are the bad ass! I've read stories about your kind and their hardware won in battle. Thank you for your service!

 

I'm on there . Desert Dory

 

Thanks for making the thread!!

Anxiously awaiting the Lake Powell chapter! Hope to see you at the lake soon!

 

Thanks for making the suggestion.

Lake Powell, on deck!

 

PART FIVE:

Day 1 - Lake Powell

I have a friend (we’ll call him Ken, since that’s his real name) that stopped by the house to check out the boat a couple months after we brought it home. Ken and I met many, many years ago when our kids were on swim team together. He's an engineer, a car guy (like me!), and one of those Type AAAA+++ guys that's wired up 24/7/365. He's also one of those guys that would do ANYTHING for you. You could count on him to be there in a second if you got a pinch. I'm fortunate to be able to call him "friend".

Also, our personalities are pretty much polar opposite and, at least according to our wives, it would be interesting to see how spending a week together in a confined space, such as a 22' boat, would work out.

Would the abundance of alcohol we had on board be a plus? Or a minus? Would I have to shoot him, rub his body down with bacon grease, and leave him out there somewhere where the animals could dispose of him? Sink him to the bottom of the lake somewhere where the fish could nibble away at him? These were things I thought about just on the drive up from Tucson. I guess we'll find out.

(Spoiler Alert: we're STILL friends!).

So anyway, Ken's crawling around the boat saying "When are we going to go here? When are we going to go there? How about Mexico? blah, blah, blah...". I said "I'm not going to Mexico unless we have a couple of buddy boats to go with so, what about Lake Powell?" I had never been to Powell and neither had Ken so, Powell it is.

Of course, with life/work/adulting getting in the way of the serious stuff, like boating, it took us awhile to get our act together and actually pick a date that would work for both of us and our families. We settled on late April.

Well, that plan got axed with the whole COVID thing. Lake Powell completely shut down for weeks. We watched, and watched, and watched, and waited, and finally the Park Service announced the ramps would reopen on 15 May. I had a commitment that day but, on friggen 16 May we had the boat loaded and were on our way!! Woot! Woot!

For those that have never been to Lake Powell (like ourselves) prepare to be awestruck. Pictures will never do this place justice, you actually have to go and experience God's handiwork. UNBELIEVABLE! 186 miles long with 1,900 miles of shoreline and you could spend a lifetime puttering around and still never see it all.

Anyhow, after the 7 hour drive from my house in Tucson, we launched at the Wahweap ramp outside of Page at 3 pm that afternoon. I had done quite a bit of research on where first timers should go with mid-lake being THE place with some of the best canyons. The Escalante River arm in particular, being mentioned a few times.

With this goal in mind, 43 miles up the lake we went.


Of course we made it about 2 FEET up the lake before Hyper-Boy wanted to stop so he could jump in the water. I'm thinking "the water's friggen 68 degrees and you're an idiot! This is going to be a long week. I hope we brought enough alcohol..."


With that out of his system, at least for the moment, we were back on track.








We ended up going just past Dangling Rope before finding a protected little cut off the main lake channel to spend the night. It had just enough beach/sand on one side to make it nice and was out away from the main lake traffic and the always unpredictable winds.


The cut heading back out to the main lake.


Our parking place for the night and the end of day one.

 

Hell ya!

This is the retirement dream the wife and I share. We have an old bayliner cabin cuddy that needs restored. Hoping someday to get back out on the water more.

 

Amazing, and to think Powell is what, 30-40 feet below full pool?

 

PART FIVE:

Day 2 - Lake Powell

After a great nights sleep on the boat, at least for me, we woke the next morning, made some coffee and breakfast, and got ready to start Day 2. Ken chose to sleep out on the beach next to the boat this first night. Between rolling down the hill a couple of times, and stuff crawling all over him in the middle of the night, I don't think he had the best nights sleep. He'll adamantly disagree with this hypothesis but he's a liar and I know better. the truth being, the next four nights he chose to sleep IN the boat. Need I say more.

We got things ready to go and set a course for Halls Crossing, which is about 93 miles from where we launched the boat the day before.






After checking out the marina/store, and topping off the fuel tanks (Pro Tip: NEVER pass a fuel station on Lake Powell! At least that's what I was told by those with years of Powell experience. AND! at $5+ a gallon it's a lot cheaper than a tow) Hyper-Boy wanted to keep going up-lake. Well, this is NOT what I had in mind (I was also told, you can't see it all in one trip, so don't even try), so I reined him in and told him "Nope. I did the research on where to go, not you, and we're going back downriver to the Escalante River arm. So, quit being a baby and just zip it". With me flexing my "El Capitan" mussels, and Hyper-Boy drowning his sorrows with a nice cold beer, we headed back down-lake. We poked around Annie's Canyon, Slick Rock Canyon, and a couple other places with each canyon and cut having it's own amazing and distinctive features.










We cruised into Iceberg Canyon where we found a nice place hang out for a bit that afternoon. At this point in the trip, I think Hyper-Boy was finally beginning to relax. Relaxing is NOT an issue for me, especially when out on the water somewhere. It just comes naturally. It's what I do. For Hyper-Boy, I don't know if it was from being in awe of the spectacular surroundings we were in, the slap down I gave him, or the 12 pk of Heineken's he downed on the way back down-lake.

Either way, we're in slowdown mode from here on out.










Do Those Dishes Cabin-Boy!!! An fetch me another Rum!!! Arrrgggg!



With no real agenda, this is where we spent our second night.

 

DOOOOOO IT!!!!

Full pool for Powell is 3700' msl. When we were there the water level was at 3601 and on it way up. So, actually about a 100' DOWN from full pool. I think it got up to not quite 3615 this year before heading back down. Right now it's at 3598, or close to that.

 

PART FIVE:

Day 3 - Lake Powell

After another great night of sleep, for me at least, and we were ready to start Day 3. Ken slept on the dinette bed last night and said it sucked and he'd rather sleep out on the beach. We already know Ken's a liar and would much rather sleep in the boat, since that's exactly what he did the rest of the trip.

Anyhow, we had our coffee and breakfast, got the boat ready to go and headed for the main lake channel.





Today's plan is to head into the Escalante River arm and poke around there for a bit. The Escalante is a pretty long arm off the main lake with a ton of offshoot canyons to explore. It is really cool, and somewhat creepy, to go snaking thru these narrow canyons, never knowing what's going to be around the next corner.

The creepy factor comes from the realization that these GIANT rock piles you see all over the place didn't actually grow up out of the water. THEY CAME FROM ABOVE!!! I figure, if God says it's your time to go, it might as well be from getting SPLATTERED by some massive boulder in an absolutely spectacular setting, rather than some lame hospital bed (Well, unless you have a REALLY cute nurse, maybe).













We went as far up the Escalante as we could and cruised around a bunch of the offshoot canyons until we got to the end of Willow Creek Canyon. WOW!!! Spectacular! It was a bit early in the day but we decided to go ahead and call it quits. We raised the engine and pulled the boat as far up the creek as we could go and dropped the hook. This was THE perfect spot! Time to do a little bit of exploring, then chill and have an early cocktail.


Keep an eye on the underwater sandbar in this pic! It'll come into play in just a bit.












So, It's getting a bit later in the evening and we're just hanging out, having a couple of cold ones when all of a sudden our mojo is TOTALLY crushed by this giant, ear piercing, SCREEEEEECHHH!!!

Remember the sandbar in the pic above? Well, obviously this guy in this 60 foot rental houseboat didn't.

He saw this nice sandy beach (the one I was standing on when I took the sandbar pic) and totally gunned the engines and headed for it like someone was going to run over there and claim it before he could get there. He TOTALLY grounded that thing.

So, I wandered over there to check it out and talk to the guy. It was two families, with younger kids, on the boat and the dude was just in a panic. "What am I gonna do! What am I gonna do!". Well, panic is certainly not going to help anything so, we assessed the situation and came to the conclusion that, A: yes, you're grounded WAAAAY up on this sandbar BUT, it's just sand and you're not sinking, just stuck. AND, B: It's a REALLY nice spot to be stuck in if you HAVE to be stuck somewhere.

I told them to hang in there, cook some food, have a few drinks, relax and enjoy the spot, and we'll get word to the marina ASAP.

Notice where the normal waterline is on the pontoon? The sandbar finally drops to deeper water WAAAAY back there by the rear edge of those rear windows. This boy was STUCK!


So, VHF and cell phones are pretty much useless back in these canyons. I ended up using the Ol' Handy Dandy Garmin inReach Satellite Messenger to send a text message to my wife asking her to call Bullfrog marina to see if they would send someone out to assist. Bullfrog said they would try to get someone out the next afternoon but they were a bit concerned with the afternoon wind forecast (gusts 40+ on the main lake body) and it may not happen.

Long story short, I talked to the houseboat guy when I got back home and he said Bullfrog never came out so they ended up spending about 6 hours Wednesday morning digging the boat out. They did finally get it off the bar and spent the last couple days of their trip at another location. He said, once it was all over it was quite the adventure and learning experience.

Ken and I??? Well, we built a nice fire on the beach, had a great dinner, enjoyed several cocktails, worried about giant boulders raining down upon us, and spent another great night in the canyons of Lake Powell.

OH! Did I mention Ken spent the night on the boat again? I think I may have...

 

PART FIVE:

Day 4 - Lake Powell

By now, you know the drill. Another glorious nights sleep (you really can't beat the fresh, desert air for a good nights sleep. A few nightcaps don't hurt either!), good coffee and a good breakfast, and we were on our way again. We snaked the Dory thru the little 2 foot deep channel we came up, around the sandbars, waved to our stranded neighbors, and hit the deeper water.



After leaving Willow Creek we explored the arms in Escalante that we had not yet checked out and made our way toward the main lake body.







This was the day the weather weenies were forecasting the 40+ mph winds out of the west/south west and they were SPOT on!

What this means is the wind is going to funnel right up the main body of the lake and wreck havoc on those stupid enough to make the mistake of heading down-lake during this 40+ mph wind event. Stay up in the north/south running canyons and all is well. But, what fun would that be!

Well, we got out there on the main lake and things were "Sporty" to say the least. 3-4 foot, wind driven slop! Spray blowing friggen everywhere. Yikes!!! Although the mighty C-Dory handled it fine, and we were perfectly safe, we made it about a mile down-lake before deciding we had enough and ducked into Ribbon canyon, the cut where an old sunken boat is located. Not a whole lot to do here so we played a lot of backgammon (I hate backgammon and Ken's a cheater!). I also walked the shoreline for a bit and caught a half dozen small mouth bass.

This is another one of those places that have all the rocks piles growing up out of the water at the shoreline. Not creepy at all. This was also the spot where I "may" have had a bit toooo much to drink and ended up leaving my favorite, ratty, perfectly broke in, Rainbow flip-flops. (I have an idea where I left them and me and the Mrs. will take a look when we visit in Oct. I don't think the water level got high enough to reach them).

Shadow from the massive cliff hanging right over our heads.













The winds were howling but we were tucked nicely away, out of the mess. Spent night four here with the ghosts of the sunken boat. OOOOOOWWWWWOOOOWWWW!!!!

 

Nearly 500 views in the first 24 hours... I'd call it a success! Remember me when the Discovery channel calls for the TV series.

 

Yes!

i skimmed today's updates using my phone at work, cause i did not want to wait until i got home.

you are a GREAT story teller @Taco-Bender!

i have greatly enjoyed YOUR trip!

thanks for sharing! keep the stories and pics coming! absolute beautiful scenery!

 

I'm humbled, thank you.

This Powell trip just wrote itself really. Hang out with some good people, have a good time, throw in a little a little adventure in an epic location with some pics, and BANG! Story.

 

Looks like a blast.

 

Thread of the Year nomination!

 

PART FIVE:

Day 5 - Lake Powell

After another a great nights sleep on the boat, at least for me, we woke up this morning, made the standard breakfast and coffee, and got ready to start Day 5. This has been a great routine, especially the morning coffee. I'm a pour-over guy. Get the water going, grind some beans with the hand grinder, get the cone/filter ready, blah, blah blah… I love it! It's like therapy! Gets me in my morning Zen! Plus! It's not like we're in a hurry to get anywhere.

Ken on the other hand drinks swill. Raise your hand if you're a fan of instant coffee . Yeah, I didn't think so.

Of course Ken chose to sleep on board again (as we already know). Ken would like you to believe that he's some tough, sleep on a bed of nails and pinecones, outdoorsy kinda guy but, in reality, he's a marshmallow just like myself. I mean, lets face it, I'm at that age and life experience level where the pursuit of comfort will override the ego, all day, every day. Ken wants to believe that is not the case with him. While I "try" not to lie to myself and pretend to be someone/something I'm not, Ken's a liar, we already know that about him.

Here's the morning sun lighting up the giant alcove/cave across the water from us. It was another beautiful morning on Lake Powell.


Which brings us to the weather and the results of the front that pushed thru, and pushed us off, the lake yesterday.

We have had some OUTSTANDING weather during our few days on the lake so far. Day time temps in the high 80's to low 90's and nights right around 60. For us Southern AZ folks, this is absolutely perfect. Where we live it's friggen HOT! Your body gets used to it being friggen HOT! When it drops to 70 we're looking for parka's, long underwear, gloves, tire chains, etc, etc... For you Northerners, low 90's may not be ideal. We have good friends that live up in northern Idaho. Dainty little candles that melt when it hits 80. They're never going to make it thru this global warming/climate change thing...

Anyhow, when we got up this morning it was friggen cold. Colder than we'd like it to be. Probably somewhere in the lower -50's. So, I grabbed the Ol' Handy Dandy Garmin inReach and hit the weather forecast button. Garmin says our high for today is going to be 74. WHAT THE?!?! 74!!!!! WE"RE GONNA DIE!!! We bundled up as best as we could, closed the side windows, closed the front hatch, closed the back door, and headed on out.

Today we're headed to Reflection Canyon, Rainbow Bridge, and a couple other places before stopping at Dangling Rope for gas and ice. This is our fifth day on the water and, although we probably have enough ice to get us thru tomorrow, I need some cubes for my cocktails tonight. It's that "pursuit of comfort" thing. We'll get just enough gas, with reserve, to get the boat back on the trailer tomorrow.









Pulling in to Rainbow Bridge we had the place to ourselves, which, from what I hear from those in the know, is quite rare. Usually there are giant tour boats coming out of the Page area that dump hundreds of people at Rainbow Bridge. With the COVID thing, and the recent reopening of the lake, the tour boats are still in a non-op status. I can't say we were sad to have the place to ourselves.

There are also floating bathrooms here so it was the perfect opportunity to dump the porta-potty. This is probably a good time to talk about the dreaded potty. A Porta-Potty (or some other kind of poop containment device that does NOT use plastic bags) is a Park requirement if your staying anywhere on the lake overnight. The reason being, the lakes water level fluctuates so much that, where you poop today could very well turn into underwater/surface swimmers tomorrow. The Park Service doesn't want a bunch of turds floating all over the lake so make sure you have something to contain those rascals if you're overnighting on the lake.








After prowling around Rainbow Bridge and the surrounding area, the plan for the day is to end up roughly an hour from the Wahweap ramp where we started these shenanigans. Liquor stocks, beer, and food supplies are hitting reserve levels so, we'll be heading back to Tucson tomorrow. We would like to be off the water probably no later than 11 am and, after looking at the map we figured somewhere in Last Chance Bay would be a great place to spend our final night.

Off we go to Last Chance Bay!



We arrived in Last Chance and started looking for a good place to call it a day. There were a couple of things we had in mind while looking for a suitable site. One being some openness. We have spent the last four nights in a canyon somewhere with no real view of the sky. How is it possible to have a proper "sundowner" (the appropriate nautical term for evening cocktails) when there's no "sundowning" to be seen! So, we decided an east side arm in Last Chance would give us a "Last Chance" for a sunset view. Hahahahahahahaha….

The other thing we were looking for was a bit of wind protection. The wind here can kick up at any time and it's usually going to be coming out of the west/south west, "usually". You don't want to have to get up in the middle of the night and reset/reposition anchors or tiedowns because the boat is blowing all over the place and banging into crap.

So, we found a decent west facing spot in one of the east side arms that had a little bump in front of it for some wind protection, just in case. With the Dory secured and a couple of hours to kill before sunset we explored the local digs and I grabbed my second shower of the trip.

This will do just fine.





The sunset wasn't quite as spectacular as we had hoped for but it was certainly adequate enough to enjoy a proper sundowner.






This was our last night on the most spectacular lake I have ever had the opportunity to visit. We wrapped up this last hurrah with a great dinner, a wonderful time around the fire, and probably WAAAAY too much to drink (don't need to carry unnecessary weight back to Tucson, right!) Thank you Lord for this amazing trip with an amazing friend!



(When I took this picture, Ken, being somewhat inebriated, was laying in his bunk singing Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" at the top of his lungs. It was a fitting end to a great evening.)

 

PART FIVE:

Day 6 - Lake Powell

Well, this is it. Our last few hours on the lake. Of course some of us had a great sleep and a great morning coffee, and some of us deceive themselves and pretend they did.

Which reminds me. Have you ever seen one of those National Geo documentaries about the life of the giant Elephant Seal? Did you see the part where the giant male Elephant Seal is sleeping there on the beach, his lady friends all around, and his elephant like snout is flailing away in the sand, making all kinds of obscene noises? This was my buddy Ken last night (not the beach part. We all know Ken DID NOT sleep on the beach, or the lady friends part). It took me a bit to drift on off to slumber-land but, WOW!!! that was quite the commotion there for awhile.

Another beautiful Lake Powell morning.





Once packed up and squared away we start heading for the ramp.



Having missed a turn somewhere to get to the "cut", we ended up in Antelope Canyon and down near the dam. This way added some distance back to the ramp but it wasn't a game changer. I don't think we would have taken the time to head down to the dam had we not made this mistake. Thanks Ken!!!





Well, that pretty much wraps up our "Lake Powell virgins" trip to the most epic lake on the planet. Absolutely God's Country! What a place! If you ever get a chance to spend some time there, DOOOOOOO IT!!!

I would like to add, I've been VERY blessed to have a wonderful, loving wife who supports my dreams, and mostly likes to join me on these misadventures. Hi Hon


I've also been blessed with some very special friends that I love dearly. Ken is one of those guys. To be honest, we don't hang out together nearly enough and we'll have to make an effort to change that.

At the time of this writing, Ken and his wife are riding their bicycles down the coast from Sonoma to San Diego CA, mostly camping along the way. While I may give him a bit of a hard time, he really is a "bed of nails and pinecones" kind of guy.

Cheers!

 

PART SIX:

As I had mentioned in the first post in this thread, we have a tradition of spending the 4th of July at Patagonia lake an hour or so south of us. We usually hang at the lake all day then head into the little town of Patagonia for dinner and fireworks. Well, with the COVID thing (there it is again! Screwing everything up!) this year we had to change things up a bit. Instead of heading into town after a day at the lake, the Mrs. and I reserved a couple of "boat-in" campsites at good Ol' Patagonia.

We invited a couple of our friends and our adult children invited 253 of their closest friends. All good, right? WRONG!!! Out of those 253 friends guess how many own a friggen boat? If you guessed ZERO, you're absolutely right on the money. Guess who has a boat and got to shuttle 253+ young adults, 593,000lbs of STUFF, a dog, a hamster named Muffin, and a host of other crap, to two boat-in campsites? If you guessed Taco-Bender, you're right again!

Do these young people know camping for two nights does NOT require an actual, folding, 6" thick memory foam mattress, a/c and generator, several fans, and enough food to feed all of East Africa!?!! I kid you not! It was amazing what I ended up hauling across the lake.

Why can't they be more like my buddy Ken. Travel light, sleep on a bed of nails and pinecones. Friggen softies!

Right up front, this was NOT my favorite outing with the boat so I really didn't care about getting any pics as I was not a happy camper. I pretty much isolated myself in my chair in the cockpit of the boat, pouted, and drank beer.

OHHHHHH!!! I just remembered!!! There was one highlight of this fiasco. The second night in, a couple of these tough guy youngsters decided to sit at the edge of the water where I had the boat sitting. They had a couple of beers and were laughing and scratching when suddenly I smell cigar smoke (I like a good cigar and may have been offended that I wasn't invited). So, I'm just sitting there sipping my Rum when, all off a sudden, I hear what sounds like a friggen fire hose spraying the water! I turn around to look and I see one of those boys latched onto a tree trunk at the waters edge spraying three lunches and a dinner into the lake. IT WAS GLORIOUS!!!

Anyhow, here's a couple crappy pics.







Also, this post gets this thread caught up and current.

As far as anything coming up, the Mrs. and I are planning a trip to Powell in mid October. I doubt I'll have very many pics from that trip as we'll probably be naked the entire time.

Cheers

 

dude!? mid-october!? you need to get that boat out some more! with more stories! and more pics!

don't care to see you naked though, no offense...

if you can, do another story of the october trip and post some pics of the scenery. ONLY the scenery!

@Taco-Bender, this thread is epic!

cheers