Thought I would fill everyone in a little on the April Lake Powell gathering. I posted photos I took in the C-Swell album under Lake Powell April 2013.
On Thursday Apr 18th Sue and I launched at Halls Crossing just before noon and had a nice cruise down to The Rincon with a side trip into Iceberg Canyon. We left our house that morning with a low of 15 degrees so the day time temperatures at Powell up in the 50's didn't seem to bad. We anchored in a cove on the north side of The Rincon Thursday night.
On Friday we left The Rincon and made a side trip up to the end of Reflection Canyon. The water is down enough that we were not able to make it as far up into the side canyons as we have in the past. We arrived at Oak Canyon in the afternoon and decided not to venture up into the actual canyon because of the cottonwoods sticking out of the water right at the entrance. We went back out into the bay and found a nice spot to anchor which would be visible to anyone looking if they came in that evening. Around 6:30PM Voyager out of Utah with Jody and Elimae his dog spotted us and dropped anchor near by. Jody came over in his kayak and told us he launched at Bullfrog around noon that day. Jody said he saw one other C-Dory on the way down but was not able to hail them on the radio. Temperatures were up in the 60's today.
Saturday C-Swell and Voyager decided to head south and go in and out of side canyons before returning to Oak Canyon Bay. Not to bore you but here are the canyons we toured. We went by Rainbow Bridge both having been there before. We went to the end of and back out of Cathedral Canyon, Mountain Sheep Canyon, Balanced Rock Canyon, Little Arch Canyon, Driftwood Canyon, coming out of Driftwood Jody spotted the miners steps, after that we went into Cascade Canyon. From here we started back to Oak Canyon Bay. As we were coming up on the island outside of Oak Bay we spotted a C-Dory. It was Amy Jo with Clint and Amy on board from Montana they also had put in at Bullfrog on Friday but spent Friday night in Cottonwood Canyon. Amy Jo was the boat Jody saw on Friday. The three of us found a nice beach to put the boats up on for the night. There was no shortage of beaches here. We had a very enjoyable visit with Jody, Clint and Amy Saturday night and Sunday morning. As it turned out no one else showed up at Oak Canyon. Temperatures made it into the 70's today.
Sunday morning Amy Jo decided they would continue south and were going to pull into Rainbow Bridge and talk to the Ranger and see if Dangling rope was open so they could refuel and not have to go all the way down to Wahweap or back to Halls Crossing or Bullfrog. Voyager and C-Swell were going to head back up to the Escalante River Arm. We went in and out of Indian Creek Canyon then into Clear Creek Canyon and the Cathedral in the Dessert, always a spectacular sight. We continued up the lake and took a run into Willow Creek Canyon looking for a place to spend the night but did not find anything. We decided we would continue up the Escalante and look for a spot at Explorer Canyon. About a half a mile from Explorer we ran into mud flats and could go no further. We both dropped our anchors and spent the night right there. It was back in the 70's again today.
Monday we headed back out of the Escalante River Arm and went all the way up to the end of Fortymile Creek Canyon, Fiftymile Creek Canyon, Davis Gulch Canyon and a nice canyon with no name across from Davis. We hit the main channel of Lake Powell after lunch and continued north went into Bowns Canyon and up the left fork saw a nice little waterfall Jody knew about. We arrived at The Rincon late afternoon and went into the same cove I anchored in on the way down. I anchored out again and Jody put Voyager on the beach. It reached into the low 80's today with the same blue skies we have been having everyday. At 10:30PM things changed. A cold front came through with some pretty good winds out of the north blowing the long way across the cove we were in. Jody and I were both up until after 1:30AM talking to each other and some boats on the south side of The Rincon. We had white caps most of the night. Jody added a anchor to his lines on the shore and my 14 lb. Delta held all night. I was concerned when the winds switched 180 degrees from when I had dropped earlier in the evening. We both made it through the night without any problem just a little short on sleep.
Tuesday morning we had both planned on leaving around 7:00 to head back to the boat ramps. The wind was still blowing with a little chop. Jody wanted to try and be at Bullfrog around 9:00 saw he left me shortly after we left The Rincon. I stayed a my 5 knot cruising speed and arrived at Halls Crossing around 11:00. We were on the road around 12:15 and back home around 4:00PM.
C-Swell with a 90 HP Suzuki had 38.1 hours on the hour meter and the flowscan gauge showed 25.7 gallons used. That works out to and average of about .67 gallons per hour.es to show how economical the C-Dory is when you keep your speed down around 5 knots.
All in all we had a great trip and enjoyed cruising with Jody and getting to meet Clint and Jody. Hope I haven't bored you all with this recap but I am sure it will interest some. We want to get back to Powell over Memorial Day weekend and make it to the September gathering.
Bill
I wanted to come back and correct it.