Fourth Day Cabin Cruiser Ocean Trip

Fourth Day – Motor to Helen’s and Herman’s Marina, Stockton, California

After finally a good night sleep, I got up at 6 am to program my GPS. I see a figure walking down the dock. I yell at him, “You know how to program a GPS?” He says, “No, but I will get someone who does.” His dad came aboard with a comment, “I have 10 minutes.” I told him my concerns in regard to the hidden reef at the entrance.”

After he reprogrammed my GPS, he said, “Why not follow me through the Golden Gate Bridge?” I readily agreed. The Golden Gate area into the Delta is heavily congested with restricted, controlled areas. The huge ships are over ¼ mile long and travel very fast. To this point in time, we had always traveled in the fog. What a welcome relief!

The first huge ship I saw was just at the entrance to the Golden Gate Bay. At first, I thought it was a cliff! It was a huge dark silhouette. There must be a God! I appreciated the boat leading the way.

Going under the Golden Gate Bridge was a good feeling of progress and accomplishment. I yelled for my mom to come on deck and to share the foggy experience of going under the huge bridge…

My boat friend led us all the way into the Delta entrance where the deep-water channel began that goes to Stockton and Sacramento, California.

With a blast of his boat horn and acknowledge by my boat horn my boat friend turn and left us. I was now on my own to navigate through the Delta. The Delta is like a bucket of snakes. It twists, turns, loops into oxbows that meander for 1,000 miles. Gas burn per hour was great. The swell action from the Pacific was behind me pushing me in. I could go all the way to Tower Marina without the need to refill.

Shallow water navigation is a lot different from the ocean navigation. I have a good GPS equipped with sonar that indicates the water depth. The Delta has many places where you can run into mud… My GPS simply stated it was unable to plot a course to the Tower Marina. I had to set-up a “navigation mode” and simply read the map presented and calculate the best route to take on a constant changing basis. It is not for the faint-of-heart!

It was with intense concentration and attention to detail that we arrived at our destination! We filled our tanks and spent the night with only 30 more minutes to go to the Tower Marina. It is such a challenge to navigate the Delta, I did not want to risk at the end of the day into dusk.

Perhaps, it was a good thing we did not go that day because the next day I got lost… I could see where I wanted to go, but it looked to shallow with lots of reeds in the waterways… It took half the next day to arrive at the Tower Marina.

Arrived:

http://dallas93444.hubpages.com/hub/Finally-Cabin-Cruiser-Arrived-in-Delta