Everyone has horror stories about taking a keel boat into the Delta.  Now that we have been there, I think the main goal is to keep those not-in-the-know out.  When you say you are heading into the Delta, they say “I hope you have a very shallow draft.”  We say its 6 foot 4 inches.  They suck air and say that they hope you are ready to run aground.  With all the negativity, we headed into the Delta with quite a bit of trepidation.  After getting anchored, we discover that a neighboring boat has a draft of 8 feet and has been coming into the Delta for decades.

We hear that the Georgiana Slough is really pretty, so we resolve to go there next. This will take us over to the old Sacramento River.  You can’t go “that way” through the Georgiana, the current goes the other way too fast.  This seems a little strange since the entire Delta is tidal.  Another said, there are too many bridges and you had better call days in advance to schedule openings.  We plan our trip up the Georgiana for the flood tide.  It was a wonderful trip and all the bridges were manned and ready to open without any advance notice.

We were told if you go to the Delta, you must go to “Walnut Grove, but unfortunately the public dock is way too small for your boat.”  We discussed anchoring near by, but in the end decided to just bypass Walnut Grove.  Right after popping out of the Georgiana Slough, Brenda caught sight of a Mocha and ice cream shop on the edge of the river.  Right out in front is a gigantic dock with at least 300 feet of available docking and it’s completely empty.  We call out to some fishermen, “is that the public dock?”  They assure us it is.  By then we see the sign.  I scramble around to put out the fenders and rig up the dock lines.  We tie off Mahdee and have a wonderful time ashore for the first time in three weeks.  We eat Chinese and have pizza and have mocha ice cream.  For $20 we spend the night on the dock.

Before heading down the Sacramento River and out of the Delta, we meet a fellow who had an old wooden boat many years ago.  Somewhere in the conversation about where we would go next, he says “whatever you do, don’t go down the Georgiana Slough.”  We couldn’t help but say that we had just had a wonderful trip up the Georgiana.  He has a shocked look on his face and says to us, “you must be much better navigators than I am.”  I realize that our secret is Musk Ox.  He was aboard Mahdee through the 1930’s and knows Mahdee like no other.  Here he is navigating us up the Georgiana Slough.  So if you have a Musk Ox, by all means go to the Delta, otherwise, perhaps you should stay away.

Navigating up the Georgiana Slough

Sitting on the public dock in Walnut Grove, enjoying the day.

Bridge into Walnut Grove…see the empty dock on the right side?

Mel’s Mocha and Ice Cream in Walnut Grove as seen from the river:

When you have found paradise, the question is what will force you to leave.  We know of a couple that found paradise while cruising and then had to leave when they ran out of a necessity–in their case it was toilet paper.  We, as well as that couple we know, were not expecting to find paradise just yet.  When we last departed civilization, we only bought a few supplies since we were unlikely to want to stay in the Delta very long.  Everyone told us that it would be very, very hot and very, very buggy.  We had minimal screening for the boat which would limit how much we could ventilate while still keeping the bugs out. 

You arrive in paradise when you least expect it.  You may not even know you are there right away.

While on that last resupply trip we thought about our friends and almost bought TP, but didn’t since we expected to be back so soon.  It turns out that decision was OK.  We expected to spend more time traveling through the Delta, but after spending our first night in Potato Slough, we decided to stay a little longer.  The temperatures only went up to the mid 80’s during the day and dropped to the 50’s at night–comfortable for sleeping in Mahdee.  The water, however, was in the mid 70’s which was perfect for a cool swim everyday.  There were a few boats around which resulted in just the right amount of social interaction and we had lots of time to do projects.

We made big progress on our rigging making it better than ever for the upcoming Schooner Event, and just about ready for the trip down the coast this Fall.  Much of the focus was on the foresail.  We had a long list of things that needed to be done to the foresail.  There were also a some important things to do to the mainsail to make it easier to work short handed too.

Brenda varnished and the topsides and deck have never looked better.  I was able to apply tubes and tubes of sealant to places that have needed it since Mahdee’s launch over a year ago.  The warm, sunny, dry location was absolutely perfect for that task.

It was easy to get lost in the work at hand, so I had to force myself to jump overboard every afternoon–just because I could and the water was so nice.  That, and I resolved to go black berry picking every other day as long as the bush had ripe berries.  If the wind was up, I’d sail the Tinker dingy, if it was calm, I’d paddle the Merrimac canoe.  Both were in the water and ready to go at a moments inclination and the berry bush had ripe berries beyond our stamina to eat them.

We had some scares when we thought we might be forced to leave.  The big scare was when our two bottles of sun block were emptied.  We are constantly buying sunblock and the bottles never seem to go empty.  Fortunately, we were able to scrounge around and find some partially full bottles.  In the end, nothing in particular forced us to go.  Sure, the food was getting interesting–whatever could be put together with what we had on hand plus fresh blackberries.  We both were ready to move on and go to new places.

So, lots was accomplished on Mahdee and there was fun recreation as well.  The hardest part was getting the inside of Mahdee ready before weighing anchor on our last day.  All those projects had resulted in lots and lots of disorganization down below.  And no one wants to spend all their time reorganizing and putting away everything each and every day while sitting in paradise.