Boating on Lake Powell
August 1st, 2019
Lake Powell
After our earlier desert adventures we were ready to head out onto Lake Powell in a houseboat. That’s when things started to go south.
We showed up early to get the paperwork done and be able to get out on the lake as soon as possible. We were supposed to be able to get the boat at 10 a.m.
We got on the boat and waited for the instructor to come and give us the training we needed to know how to operate the boat. We had lots of food in coolers for the time on the water. The refrigerator on the boat was not working, we assumed because the power was off.
It got to be noon and still no instructor. I went back to the office where they told me they were short handed and we would just have to be patient.
That’s the Navajo Power Plant in the distance.
Those two rocks are known as the Gunsight.
At 2 pm I again went looking for help. I found a guy on the dock who said he could do our check-out. This guy could have doubled for “The Dude” from “The Great Lebowski.” He was obviously in a state of altered consciousness.
The one-hour of instruction took him only about 15 minutes. Most of it consisted of a joke he kept repeating about the laxative effects of drinking the lake water.
Finally we were on our way. We quickly discovered that the boat was nearly impossible to steer. There was a large “steering wheel.” If you turned it one way and waited a few minutes the boat would slowly start to turn in that direction. Turn it back the other way, wait several minutes, and it would begin to move in that direction. There was no real way to determine when you had it set to go straight ahead.
The water in the lake was extremely low because of the many years of drought. This summer it has come up more than 50 feet from where it was when we were there. Everything we photographed is now under water.
The first thing we had to do was pass through a very narrow passageway that looked like it had been dug out of the rock. It was only about two boats wide. We made it through and were heading to a second narrow passage when BAM! the boat came to a sudden stop which sent me sprawling on the deck (I wasn’t driving).
We found we were stuck on top of a submerged rock. We couldn’t get off. Another boat tossed a line to us and tried to pull us off to no avail. It was now near the time that the marina closed for the day, so there was no way to get help until the next day. So we spent the night stuck on that rock. Not a big problem. The boat was comfortable enough and everything was working, so I cooked a nice dinner and we went to sleep.
In the morning I called the marina on the radio. They knew about our situation and sent out a boat with a couple 200 horsepower outboards. He quickly pulled us off the rock.
We found that the bottom unit of one of the houseboat’s two outboards was gone as a result of its encounter with the rock, but we still had one working motor.
We were all pretty upset and discouraged and we discussed just turning in the boat and leaving. But we decided to stay since the boat was paid for and we had a bunch of food to eat.
The skies were pretty wonderful.
Instead of going back through the narrow channel and exploring the lake, we just stayed in the large bay near the marina. There was plenty of room to be away from other boaters and lots of nice red rock scenery to photograph. I think we got some good photos.
Thanks to Blueriverdream and Nevaehlleh for these photos. More to come.
Lake Powell sunset
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