John and Grayle Blecker started this thread. I am sad to report that John was medivaced out of Oak Canyon late last week, to Flagstaff. Those of us who were there have been saying our prayers for John. I am in touch with Grayle each morning--and John is better today. I have to say wonderful things about the National Park Service Ranger, and the Medivac crew.
We came off the lake yesterday, after taking John and Grayle's boat to Antelope Marina the day before. Marie did a fantastic job of running our boat, and docking in some difficult situations. (probably better than I could have done).
We will be around the campground for a couple more days before heading East. We cut our trip a little short both because of some issues involving my Aunt, and the situation with John Blecker.
The use of both the freezer and refrigerator Dometic 50 liter chests worked very well. We used about 2 gallons of gas a week to power the Honda EU 1000. Run time was about 2 hours a day--less if we ran the engine. We had enough water for 10 to 11 days, and that was the limiting issue. Of course we could have boiled lake water. It was a relief not to deal with the ice on the lake.
We tried an 11 inch prop, but it was too low a pitch, and RPM was too high for the majority of the time when we ran at 6 knots. We went back to the 13" prop--which is what we have used in the past. Top speed was about 18 mph, and we cruised at 13.5 knots to 14 knots, and about 4200 to 4500 RPM. I have not calculated our total fuel use yet. But we did run at the higher speed on several occasions.
No issues in the San Juan drainage, ref the spill, or contamination. While we were up there we only saw 3 other boats--far less than we have found in the past.
Fishing great--some help with Steve on Constant Craving, who made sure that Marie was up at 5:30 AM to catch those stripers!