It's a reservoir, not a lake...

4-18-2010

I spent a couple days at Glen Canyon Reservoir. (GCR)

Some people like to call it 'Lake Powell' but I'm pretty confident of 2 things: 1) John Wesley Powell would not like his name attached to this body of water- he preferred the canyon below. 2) It's a reservoir, not a lake.

Nevertheless, I'm not one of those crazy Sierra Club Drainer types, I like it for what it is, but I also like the idea of the now-submerged canyon.

So I am, through a strange multi-year chain of events, a part owner of Miller's High Life, a 43 foot Boatel houseboat that has lived on the GCR since 1973.
We've started calling it the 'Money Pit'


Every year, we have to take it out of the water for winterization and put it back in for the summer. We're something of a legend, as there are only a few owners of these things that will do their own launching/retrieval. Hundreds of boats and only about 6 are managed by the people that use them. It allows us into the deepest darkest bowels of the storage yards, and it also gives us a few perks, such as extended hours into the services that are offered in the marina.

In 2006 when we first purchased the craft, we hoped to buy an on-water mooring. The waiting list at that time was approximately 5 years. Due to the economic retraction of 2007-2009, we were contacted by the service vendor in 2009 asking if we'd like a mooring. Now.

So we have a sweet on-water parking space for our little money pit. And a complimentary parking space for our giant trailer.

Anyway, we showed up and pulled the boat out of storage, parked it in a massive parking lot to do a little bit of work on it.

A quick coat of paint on the rails, a couple of items installed and Johnny Law comes to tell us we can't camp where we are.

So we move the thing 100 feet away and stealthily set up our sleeping arrangements.


In the morning, we spend some time installing a new stereo, fixing the plumbing, doing some electrical work and generally loafing around.

At 4pm, we pack it all up and head toward the water- time for some launching.


People stop and stare. I guess it's pretty unusual to have an owner floating their own boat.
The butt of the boat hits the water and we fire up the engines. Or I should say: we TRY to fire up the engines. For some reason it doesn't work very well. one of the two engines dies whenever throttle is applied. The other doesn't like to start at all.

So we sit at the bottom of the launch ramp with our bum in the water hoping and praying that this beast will start so we can get in a couple minutes of recreation before the sun goes down.

While we wait, other people come by, complimenting our paint job, a service employee apologizes to us for making us launch our own (I prefer it) and a nice group of kayakers comes by and gives me a sweet new visor, which is somewhat related to the name of the boat.


Finally Mr. Mechanic and his assistant (forevermore known as Skipper and Gilligan) get them fired up and pull the trigger.

I back them in and slam on the brakes. The engines rev and this bitch floats! They putter across the bay and drive it up onto a beach. I go to park the trailer, walk back down to the dock and hitch a ride over to the beach.

We spend the next couple hours kayaking, swimming and eating fine food. A speedboat ride into the canyons scratches an itch, and I'm deposited back on the dock to begin the walk of shame back up the ramp to the truck, for we must go home tonight. The other bastids are staying for another day...