Be Careful on Lake Powell

OUCH!! Would our chart show that rock??
 
If the Lat and Lon on Google is correct, it is marked on my chart. It appears to be in the Oak Creek Canyon area--and the photo seems to confirm that.

I hit a pinical rock in Alaska with my RIB--I didn't take the chart with me, I knew there was one near, but misjudged the position. It took a piece out of the side of the gear case of a 25. I had a kicker aboard the RIB (we were over 10 miles from the large boat, so it would have been a real paddle). I took the gear case apart, repaired the hole with JB weld. The gears were OK. I ran it until I was able to find a used good case.

It boils down to eye ball navigation in hazardous areas--but I think we all hit bottom or floating items at one time or another. I am surprised it was not marked. But the lake goes up and down fairly rapidly at times.
 
We found a similar problem on Lake Mead with pinicle rocks. The lake level fluctuates daily. If the lake drops 12 inches or so overnight, a rock that you zoomed over yesterday can take out your lower unit today.
 
We're going to have that kind of problem here at Lake Shasta later this year.

The Forrest Service has most of the hazards pretty well marked, but only down to a average low water level. We're already 60 feet down, and will probably get down to 100-120 feet below high water before the summer's out due to having gotten only about 40% of our normal rainfall. There's be a lot of rocks and islands showing up that haven't been seen since the dought of 1977.

Anyone boating on this type of resevoir with an unusually low water level should be appropriately careful.

On the upside, it should be a good lost anchor hunting season!

Joe.
 
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