The trip was scheduled for six volunteers, all ladies, instead of the usual four. One had to cancel, so we started out with five. We also ended with five…just the way I like it. I don’t like loose ends. The ladies brought their gear on board, plus a goodly amount of beer. Hmmm! This might be an interesting trip. We did have a few lively discussions on the merits of Coors Light versus other brands. Anyway, once they got their gear on board, we turned the Master of Ceremonies loose on them. Gizmo instantly won their hearts and all was well. The NPS ranger came on board, did her thing and we took off for Stanton Creek where RV’s dry camp at the edge of the lake. It’s always dirty and is in need of constant cleaning.
We motored down to Haystack Rock and pulled into a great little secluded spot.
After a quick lunch, we headed off in the Eliminator and started sweeping for trash. Trash we did find! More trash we did find! Still more trash did we find! We ran into an interesting new tactic. It seems that some jet skiers (“Lake Lice”) were bringing carpeting to the beach. The carpeting was used to protect the bottoms from being ground up by sand, rocks and the like. The only problem was that they just left the carpet when they were through and went home. Nice! Now, take a guess what a 12’ x 12’ wet and very muddy carpet weighs. Probably about as much as 40 to 50 Gizmo’s. We couldn’t lift it. I broke out my “toy”, the DeWalt reciprocating saw, and went to town. I cut that carpet into about six manageable pieces in no time flat. The Eliminator took on a definite starboard list. We finished up the immediate area, called it a day and went back to the TT for a well-deserved beer. I even had two, very unusual for me, but today, I needed them. Dinner was shrimp shish kabobs. Sleep came easy,,,VERY easy.
Day Two started out with a weather report. There was the threat of showers and thundershowers in the morning, followed by a 40% chance of showers and thundershowers in the afternoon and evening. Hmmm! Nothing new. OK, time for work. Off we go! We spent the full day cleaning the rest of Stanton Creek
and almost filled the right side of the Eliminator. It now had a very definite starboard list, even with all five volunteers standing or sitting on the left side of the boat. Since we still had a few hours of daylight left, we came back to the houseboat. We then headed off in the runabout for Annie’s Canyon, about ten miles downlake. We first stopped at a huge cavern for a swim and then checked out the beautiful slot canyon at the end of the main finger. We then returned to the TT for a beer, a mango margarita and tacos for dinner. YEAH! Sleep came easy,,,VERY easy.
We had a choice for Day Three. We could either move back into Bullfrog Bay and clean it, or, if the weather permitted, we could move downlake to “The Rincon” and clean that area. OK…listen to the weather report. There was the threat of showers and thundershowers in the morning, followed by a 40% chance of showers and thundershowers in the afternoon and evening. Hmmm…nothing new…again! We haven’t had any rain as yet, with a major emphasis on “as yet”. We have had some VERY nasty-looking dark cumulus nasties (thunderclouds)
coming right at us but, at the last minute, they either dissipated or went around us. Since the girls really wanted to see more of the lake, they “convinced” me to move to The Rincon.
We pulled in the anchor lines and set off down the lake. As we left, Claudia and one volunteer went to Halls Crossing for more ice and other needed supplies. Since we didn’t want to lose them, I stopped the TT outside of Halls, right next to a nice striper boil. Since we weren’t going anywhere anyway, I grabbed my fishing rod and promptly put three nice stripers into a cooler. Shar, a VERY competitive person when it comes to fishing, got skunked. Basically, as she kept saying, I kicked her a**! Actually, there wasn’t anything basic about it, she got a lesson…and I let her know about it. I was NOT a gentleman. :) She is an expert fly fisherman, but this was lure-fishing. The only flies around were the varmint kind!
Claudia soon returned and we continued downlake. We found a nice spot just prior to The Rincon and set up for the duration. I set two anchor lines off the left side, the anticipated direction of any major wind, and one off the right. Again, after a quick lunch, we hit the shores under ominous skies. It was getting darker, with solid dark thunderclouds in a big semi-circle, coming directly for us. We moved with a purpose. That purpose would be to clean up The Rincon before the storm hit. If that happened, we would find ourselves out on the lake in an aluminum boat in a major lightning storm. Not a pretty thought! After a couple of hours of hard work, we completed cleaning the area as the storm just went away without so much as a “pffitt”! We returned to the TT where I noted the wind was coming from the right side. OK, OK, I put out a second anchor line on the right. We now had four lines out, two on each side, all around big boulders. Let it blow! We weren’t going anywhere. Dinner was barbecued chicken, cooked to perfection! Sleep came easy,,,VERY easy.
Day Four was our “Play Day”…for the most part. There was the threat of showers and thundershowers in the morning, followed by a 50% chance of showers and thundershowers in the afternoon and evening. WOW…a change in the weather report! The threat was now at 50%. GREAT! Trash Trackers never quit, so we all jumped into the runabout and headed for the Escalante Arm of the lake, armed with cameras, lunches, fishing rods, trash bags and pickers. A short distance down the lake, I spotted a striper boil. “Game on!” Shar and I both chucked a lure into the foaming water. I hooked up immediately. She pulled her lure through the boil unscathed. After a short, heavy pull, my fish decided he wanted my lure and the line snapped. Phooey, shucks, golly, gee whiz and darn! We continued on and pulled into the Escalante. We went into Indian Creek and then Clear Creek where the girls climbed the rocks
to the rope ladder at the “Cathedral in the Desert”. We then headed for Davis Gulch and LaGorce Arch for lunch. It was then time to return to the TT.
Shortly after returning, I shamed Shar into joining me in the runabout to get at least one more striper for dinner. We started trolling with no success or boils. The radio crackled with a “Mayday” call. I waited for the NPS to answer, but they didn’t. I called the person reporting and found out it was only a badly damaged prop. Since they were about five miles north of Halls Crossing, the Bullfrog rangers took over and handled the incident. At the same time, another boater was reporting a problem and the incidents got a little muddled. Both Claudia (in the Trash Tracker) and I (in the runabout) were relaying emergency information between the two boaters and the NPS.
With the first incident settled, I concentrated on the second. That turned out to be houseboat M-20, just uplake at Iceberg Canyon with a disabled engine. Shar and I reeled in our lines and headed for the disabled boat. We found it adrift at the Iceberg entrance and pulled alongside. I tied the runabout to the houseboat and climbed on board. I told them who we were and that we worked for Aramark and asked the details of their problem. I pulled the cover off the outboard, checked a few wires and went to the helm. The balky engine started, but then died. I started it again, but this time it continued to run. They were looking for a parking spot where the kids could swim so I pushed the throttles up and headed for The Rincon, checking the engine performance as we went.
The engine ran fine. I really have no idea what was wrong, but it was now working fine. I found a suitable spot to beach the houseboat and pulled it gently against the shoreline. I then set out two anchors for them and started to leave. Unfortunately, as their son cleated off the second anchor, he dropped the line and it wrapped in the still-turning prop. The son and I both donned life jackets and jumped into the lake, as the knot that now entwined the prop was not a one-person fix. After twenty minutes or so, we cleared the line with (surprisingly) no damage. At that point, Shar and I did say goodbye and headed for home.
Dinner that night was going to be either lasagna or stripers. When we came on board, Claudia had decided it would be fish. She had chunked the fillets into “fingers” and was preparing a deep-fry setup on the barbecue.
Dinner was a pot-luck of deep-fried stripers, salad (with a couple of delicious avocados and tomatoes in it), a shrimp salad and baked beans. It was magnificent! Sleep came easy,,,VERY easy.
Day Five, the day we return to civilization. There was the threat of showers and thundershowers in the morning, followed by a (back to) 40% chance of showers and thundershowers in the afternoon and evening. We got all four anchor lines in and were underway by 8:00. Although I was on full “Striper Alert” for the return trip, no boils materialized and we snuck into Bullfrog Bay at 11:30 under beautiful, sunny skies with magnificent, white cumulus clouds off in the distance. Since the pumpout dock was totally full and had boats waiting, Claudia took the Eliminator to the launch ramp to meet the NPS trash truck. She and three of the volunteers emptied the boat and returned to the now-docked Trash Tracker. They had unloaded 61 bags of trash and 1000-plus pounds of other assorted junk. You know the rest of the drill by now. Yada, yada, yada, and we finished out the trip.
On the way home, we stopped at the EDR to look at the menu. Fish & Chips it was. That solved the dinner problem. Claudia ain’t cookin’ tonight!
After dinner, we checked our Internet at the lodge and returned home. I am now sitting at my computer station, typing this blog as the lightning and thunder crash incessantly all around us. 360-degrees of fire in the sky! We FINALLY got our rain!
1 comment:
Sleep always comes easy... VERY easy when you spend you day supervising and harassing stripers. That is very hard work!!!
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