Ranger Tugs' live webinar series, As the Prop Turns, is featuring special guest hosts, Jim and Lisa Favors. In this episode, Jim and Lisa will detail their top 5 cruising destinations in the U.S. and Canada. Stay tuned for the second in a two-part series (later this year) in which the Favors will talk about how and why they trailer their boat all over the country.
Call us Snowboaters or Boaterhomers – Using Our Boat On Land And Water! – We're certain you've heard of the term "Snow Birds." Southern Boating just coined a new boating-related term for what the crew of Kismet has been doing for over seven years. "Snowboaters!" We also like to reference our over-land adventures by saying we are "Boaterhomers." Whatever the term you use to describe what we do regularly, as a lifestyle choice, it's working for us in a big way. Using our trailerable boat as both a land vehicle and a water vessel provides us with some amazing flexibility in…
Our time on Lake Powell came to a close today as we made our way back to Wahweap Marina and civilization. We would highly recommend Lake Powell as a cruising destination for adventurous boaters, whether you bring your own boat or you rent a houseboat. We enjoyed using our iPad with the Navionics app to navigate Lake Powell. Great tool, way outperformed our expectations. This (below) was our carefully saved garbage from our ten-day trip. We also stowed the extra anchor and line we used while on Lake Powell, we won't need it again for a while. We spent one…
We spent our last night in Lake Powell anchored in Padre Bay, the same area we anchored our first night out. This time we found a little cove that was quite a bit more protected just over the hill from our first anchorage site. With a very clean, sandy beach off our bow the site was closely protected on three sides. Jim is an old pro at burying the anchor now. It seems like it only takes a few minutes now to get settled versus the 45 min. we started out with. Here (above) you can see how our back…
We found Dungeon Canyon to be quite impressive. It's another wide open area with lots of sites to beach anchor, and plenty of space between boats for added privacy. As the day progressed, we enjoyed watching the way the light changed on the different rock faces surrounding us as the sun set and the warm, gold glow in the canyon turned more to a pinkish yellow before it cooled off and finally set just before the canyon turned dark. The view at dusk off the stern of Kismet. (Above) Jim is giving a demonstration (above and below) on how…
Sorry, just had to post these photos. As an artist and photographer, I was completely mesmerized by the organic art ready to be found in the rock formations in Lake Powell. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Exploring Twilight, Driftwood, and Mountain Sheep Canyons today. We found this small arch (below) forming just inside one of the canyons. We traveled back as far as we could in each canyon, not many anchor spots available here, so we eventually headed over to Dungeon Canyon to camp for the night. Canyon cruising is very entertaining, before you know it the day is half over.
We would have loved to beach anchor in Davis Gulch today after our tour of it, but the only available site was already taken, so back to Oak Bay for us tonight. As we mentioned before this is a popular spot and even though it is off-season there were a few houseboats already beached when we arrived.
Here are just a few examples of the variety of wall shapes and colors you might see while cruising Lake Powell. We couldn't help but wonder what they faced to become so sculptured and colored. We saw walls with huge jagged pieces clearly pulling away from their mother rock – we imagined they might soon succumb to the elements and make their final descent disappearing below the deep, dark blue water below.
We were the first boat into Davis Gulch this morning and because of that, this is what we found... eerily still waters mirroring the sculptured rocks and dark blue skies. The rock face took on gigantic organic shapes, a few suggesting arrows pointing into the canyon. Absolutely breathtaking.
Our last morning in Cottonwood Canyon was as still as could be. This made it even harder to leave this beach anchorage, but we knew we would have a morning full of visual delights as we headed out toward our day's destination, Davis Gulch, and Llewellyn Gulch. The sky and water could not be bluer and the rock walls stood in high contrast as the sun slowly turned them bright orange.
Our anchorage in Cottonwood Canyon was my personal favorite. It was such a beautiful spot, we spent two nights there; I could have spent more. With so much to see, and not knowing what surprises lay ahead of us, we did eventually, but reluctantly, move on, but what a wonderful two days of solitude and peace we had in this spectacular canyon. I don't know exactly what grabbed at my heartstrings while tucked into this isolated, natural harbor, but I felt like we had been transported to another world. To climb high up the rocky shore and look down at…
Sculptured rocky cliffs lined our route today to Cottonwood Canyon. Cathedral arches, etched in the glowing orange rocks, stood out on the otherwise sheer, rock faces.
We arrived at the bridge late morning after a beautiful ride through the Forbidden and Rainbow Bridge Canyons. Rainbow Bridge is the world's largest known natural bridge. It was once a solid wall of sandstone. During flash floods, sand-filled water scoured away both sides of the buttress. Eventually, the stream penetrated the rock and began to flow through and widen the new opening. The erosion of the Bridge continues today. Native American Tribes and Nations have nurtured a sacred connection with the bridge for centuries. Even today, the Navajo, Hopi, San Juan, Southern Paiute, Kaibab Paiute, and White Mesa Ute…
This is what it looked like (above) from inside the boat as we negotiated the narrow canyons on our way to Rainbow Bridge National Monument. Each canyon, off the main river route, is marked with these buoy-type signs (below-right) that way boaters unfamiliar with Lake Powell, like us, will have a better chance of NOT getting lost. The last tour boat of the day passed us as we traveled up the canyon. We thought this was probably a good thing as the dock and trail won't be as busy when we get there. Only a few boats were tied up…
On our fourth day out, we found the well-protected, but wide-open, Oak Bay for a couple of nights' stay, we shared a beach with only one other houseboat. This is one of the most popular bays for boaters in Lake Powell. Today we were more comfortable with picking a spot on the beach and it only took us a few minutes to tie ourselves down, mostly because we'd left our lines and spare anchor tied in place on the boat. Most days, we’d leave our beach anchorage to explore new canyons. Later, about mid-day, we’d start looking for a new…
The mystery of the unknown is one of the most compelling reasons why we love exploring new (to us) boating destinations. Lake Powell more than satisfied our quest to be inundated with awe-inspiring sights as we made our way up the lake, around the crested buttes and all the rock canyons that the lake has to offer. At 186 miles long, with 2,000 miles of shoreline and 96 uniquely named, and flooded canyons, there was always something new to see, just around the next bend. Our first narrow canyon cruising exploration came on our third full day on the lake. While…
Anchoring and Stern Tying to Shore in Dry Rock Creek Canyon We found out that sometimes you can go all the way into a winding canyon only to discover there are no beaches to tie up to. As we neared the end of Dry Rock Creek Canyon today, we finally found a spot that looked promising. Since it's only our second night on the lake we're still a little nervous about rocks lurking beneath the water by the shore. We decided to try anchoring and sterling in; this method took a few tries to get where we felt comfortable. Initially,…
First Beach Anchor – Padre Bay We left Wahweap Marina after three days of weather watching – glad to finally be on our way, headed toward the canyons on the horizon that teased us for several days. For east coast boaters, like us, experiencing Lake Powell for the first time is rather a daunting prospect. All we could see in front of us was rock, and lots of it – almost a foreign concept for boaters from the Great Lakes. It's really okay to be just a little nervous when cruising unfamiliar waters for the first time; being cautious and careful is a good…
The Amazing Lake Powell Lisa and I have talked for a long time about our mutual interest in cruising Lake Powell on a houseboat, it's been on our to-do list for quite some time. For one reason or another, it never worked out until now, although it won't be on a houseboat but on our very own tug boat, Kismet. Prior to the building of the Glen Canyon Dam, which was completed in 1963, Lake Powell did not exist and boating was nothing like it is today. It took 17 years to fill the canyons up to their full pool…
The day before we left Wahweap to explore the canyons of Lake Powell we thought it would be appropriate to visit the dam which created the lake we are soon to boat in. We signed up for the tour and learned a lot about the construction and purpose of the dam. Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona in the United States, just north of Page. The dam was built to provide hydroelectricity and flow regulation from the upper Colorado River Basin to the lower. Its reservoir is called Lake Powell, and is the second largest artificial lake in the country, extending upriver well into Utah. The…
Wahweap Lodge and Marina in Arizona is our spot to launch Kismet for a long, two-week adventure on Lake Powell. A cloudless sky and calm waters greeted us at the boat ramp just after we entered the resort, shortly after our boat inspection. The inspection for Lake Powell was not as thorough as we experienced with Lake Tahoe. We mostly answered questions and think it helped that we'd last had our boat in the fresh waters of Lake Tahoe. Getting the boat into the water was easy enough on the HUGE boat ramp which accommodates large houseboats and fluctuating water…
