Day 1: The Wind
For anyone who has been to Lake Powell and rented a house boat, you know that when you anchor the house boat, it better be anchored well. (Read below on how to accomplish this.)
Unfortunately we did not anchor as well as we might have the first night. After a day of enjoying the sun and the air we decided to finish the night be watching "Bullit". ("Bullit" is the first movie that had a real car chase scene.)
"Bullit" Car Chase Scene
(Note: A graphic scene occurs at the end of this clip.)
The windows were open on the house boat and we were letting the wind cool us down after a hot day, but as we were watching the movie, suddenly a powerful gust of wind came down on us. We all suddenly sat stiffly in our chairs as we heard the howling wind. It only took us about two seconds before we realized that we were in for it.
The occupants of the boat suddenly looked like the crew of a star destroyer that was taking emergency action. We were on our feet, running this way and that. It was like playing football and trying the break the line, everyone was suddenly in everyone else's way.
How to Anchor Well:
To properly anchor a house boat you will want to lay the anchors as near as possible to 45 degree angles from the house boat. One end of the rope will be tied to the house boat, and if you are wise, you'll tie the other end to the anchor. To be well prepared, plan on bringing at least four 25 pound anchors. Two will go on one side of the house boat (tying mid-way down the house boat and at the rear) and the other two will go on the other side of the houseboat.
Find the four locations (on land) where you will lay the anchors. At these locations you will want to dig holes about two feet deep and wide enough to fit the anchors down in them. Lay the anchors into the holes and then cover them with dirt. (Important: It is important not to err in the previous step. Do not cover the holes with dirt and then lay the anchor as this will leave the anchor un-anchored.) For additional support, stakes can be laid to reinforce the anchors position.
Finally, tighten the ropes so they are taut. This may take as many as four people pulling on the rope while tying it.
Day 2: First Try
Let it never be said that after a crazy night at Lake Powell that you won't be able to have an awesome day. We still all got up early the next day to start our skiing, wake boarding, and more. There really wasn't anything cool that happened... except the awesome event that Paula got up on the wake board her first try. Was I surprised? Not a bit. I had every confidence that she would get up on her first try.
Ok, truth be told, Paula has gotten up on her first try the last two years, but her second, third, forth, etc tries have been... Well, let's just not talk about that. Now, just so you know dear reader, I don't think Paula is much at fault for not getting up again in previous years. One thing that we semi-professional boaters love to do once someone accomplishes getting up on a wake board is to tell them what else they can do to be better. This isn't necissarily a bad thing, but for some reason as we started telling Paula all of the other things that she could now do, I think we overwhelmed her and she just couldn't get up again. Both of the previous years at Lake Powell she got up once the first day and then just couldn't get up again for the rest of the week until the last day of the week. I can imagine that it was probably pretty discouraging, but I'm glad that I married such a good sport.
This year Paula and I decided to try something new. We would not tell her how to do anything that she didn't ask about. So, when she got up the first time and then later crashed, nobody on the boat said anything. She got up again, and still of course crashed a little later. (I bet at this point most of us were tempted to give some advice, but we refrained.) Fortunately, without us saying anything, Paula just kept getting up. It was pretty awesome.
Here is some proof that Paula got up. This wasn't her first run and it definitely was one of her worst runs, but at least it's a video. See Video
Day 3: You Would Never Believe
The third day was very atypical of Lake Powell. You would never believe it, but nothing went wrong, no one got hurt, and we all just had fun. Everyone did just fine on their wake boards, skis, and so on. I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. (Yeah I know, the paragraph doesn't live up to it's title.)
Day 4: Get the Nurse
By the forth day everything was continuing just fine. Paula was still getting up on the wake board and I was getting a bit more confident with my jumps. It seemed like another atypical day until someone got hurt. Fortunately, Paula is studying to be a nurse and know how to deal with a lot of situations, so we kind of had a doctor on board. Unfortunately, it was the nurse who was hurt.
Somehow while Paula was wake boarding, the lip of her board caught and she face planted. Even stranger than that, the board came around her back, and while still attached to her feet, gave her a big wack in the head.
I have to admit that the injury made me a bit squeamish. The board some how gave her a cut that ran around the back of her ear and was about three inches long. At the top of the cut where the board had initially hit her was a goose egg that had also split open and the wound looked pretty deep to me, but I'm sure it couldn't have been to bad because (SPOILER WARNING) Paula is still alive today.
Here is a picture of here injury after it had done some healing.
Later that day we decided to take a break from skiing and such and do some sight seeing. It was interesting going around the lake because the water level had risen a lot over just a few months. For example, our favorite jumping hole, affectionately referred to as the toilet bowl, was now deep under water. But as we were exploring we found a very interesting tree sticking out of the water. Jacob decided it would be fun to climb the tree, so that's what this next picture is.
Also this day we found some nice cliffs and did some cliff jumping. That's always fun, but double, triple, and quadruple check the water depth when you do it. No amount of cliff jumping is worth injury.
Day 5 and 6: This Means War
By Wednesday night we had not yet done any tubing, so Thursday (day 5) we decided it was time to go all out. Lets just say that it was crazy and that no one was seriously injured.
We had three tubes out on the water. Two tubes were one man tubes and the third tube is a beastly large three man tube. We've been known to put small elephants on the large tube... ok just kidding, but it could sure hold a lot of weight.
The way we play it, the two smaller tubes are on the outside while the larger is on the inside. One person rides each small tube and those two are on a team. Two other people ride the big tube and they are also on the team. The goal was to get the other people off their tubes. There are some good pictures of this posted below. See the Ultimate Tube War Video or check out the Girls Tube War.
The First Battle: Jacob and Rachel vs. Jon and Jessie
Check out the Green Tube
An Unlikely Outcome
Dirty... Funny... Legit
That's a lot of People
Never Give Up
This is how exhausted tube wars make you feel
Football anyone?
Another Battle
You Know the Competition is Scared
Holy Cow
Day 7: Homeward Bound
Have you ever seen the movie, "Homeward Bound"? It's about a bunch of animals who are trying to get home. Definitely a kids movie, but day 7 was definitely not like that movie so don't get the wrong impression.
This was our final day. We packed up, pulled anchors, and headed for home, but not before taking the traditional "last day at Lake Powell" picture. We are usually all crying at this point because either we don't want to go home or we are just so beat up we wish that we were at home. Fortunately on this trip we were all just happy to have had such an awesome week.
All of us young adults took out the ski boat out one more time while the house boat drove in. We had time for one last adventure, so we had it alright.
It was near the end of our skiing that we noticed the gas was a bit low so we decided to head in. Right as we pulled into the no wake zone where you dock the boats, we noticed that the boat started to sound a bit funny. The motor was struggling and we realized that the gas was out. So we killed the engine and threw Jon an oar. At the front of the boat he paddled us in. Fortunately the docks were down stream so that helped too. The trip with just the oar probably took about 20 minutes.
I must say, we must have looked like soldiers, home from a war with Lake Powell. It might have been the glistening in our eyes or the spray in our hair, or maybe it was the fact that we were being paddled to the gas docks, but we sure got a lot of looks. Every single (and I do mean every single, without exaggeration) boat, house boat, and jet ski looked at us with piqued silent curiosity as we paddled for home. I could almost hear music playing as we were heralded in to the gas pumps. We were heroes, and we were home. ...Ok, we were stranded survivors, and someone actually pulled us in the last 50 yards, but we can exaggerate on some things, right?
1 comment:
Where's the rest of the LP story? I'm anticipating the continuation since I missed it all this year! :(
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