Jun 4 – Lake Powell Cruise

We knew we wanted to take a cruise out on Lake Powell. There are several options. A 1.5 hour one goes out to narrow Antelope Canyon and back. A 2.5 hour one does a big loop and goes to Antelope and Navajo Canyons. And a 7.5 hour one goes far up the lake and to see Rainbow Bridge, but with the low water levels you must hike for a mile from the boat to see the arch/bridge.

Even without the hike 7.5 hours on a boat in this heat would be too much.  We have been on some other long ones and by the end you are not looking at anything and just want to be done. We took the middle one and it turned out to be just right. Just as I was feeling “OK, I have had enough”, we were close to being back.

We also took the early 9-11:30 to escape the afternoon heat. With the wind from the moving boat is was a very pleasant trip. The flat calm water helped too.

Everybody got headsets that provided a commentary in their preferred language. There are a lot of overseas tourists here. I am pretty sure we were in the minority speaking English. 

We usually try to be one of the first on the boat so that we can get a seat on the top deck. In this case it really paid off. It turns out that the boat is kind of top heavy and if you don’t get a seat on the top (35 seats) then you can not go up there during the trip. I am sure there were some annoyed late comers because the view from below was not that great.

Leaving the marina. There are a lot of boats here. The captain said that there are around 800 private boats, mainly houseboats and 300 rental houseboats.

As we left, a copy of the boat we have at the family cottage came in. It would have been great to go out and explore on our own.

On the way to the dam.

We didn’t stay in our seats very long. Sitting down, Jennie had to look through the fence. She got up and found a great unobstructed spot at the back, where she spent most of the trip. I got up and just wandered around to get different views.

We didn’t get really close to the dam.

You can really see the bathtub ring of the high water mark.

Entering Antelope Canyon. It was very narrow and twisty.

As we entered I spotted these people in a shady spot on the cliff face over the water. I couldn’t figure out how they got there.

This guy felt a bit intimidated by the huge tour boat behind him so he stopped to let us by.

This is as far as we or anybody could go. Around the corner is a beach. Conveniently the canyon was also wide enough here to turn the 65 foot tour boat around.

Heading back out to the main part of the lake.

The stuff on the water is not garbage. It somehow is created by rain and the rock walls.

Back out in the main section.

We saw this houseboat anchored at a beach.

They had a great setup.

Notice the huge slip n slide. A piece of plastic and a water pump to make it slippery.

Next we went by the Antelope Point Marina. Another massive collection of houseboats.

The rental ones all seemed to have hot tubs although I can’t see using one in the summer heat.

The private ones are all decked out. The captain said that people cannot live in them year round. They are only allowed to stay in them for 30 days a year so a lot of them are timeshares.

This one even has a helipad on the top.

The restaurant at the marina, the building below, is actually floating on the lake.

The tour boat puts out a huge wake so of course the jet skis came out to play.

Because of the large wake, we had to slow way down each time we passed one of the houseboats. They are so low and top heavy that if we passed one at full speed we could swamp and sink it.

As we pass they are supposed to slow down so that we can get by quickly. The captain had to radio this guy to give him a hint.

Into Navajo Canyon.

This one is much wider. The main reason is to go see some high walls with what they called “Navajo Tapestry” which was really just the dripping iron oxide and manganese staining the sandstone.

They said there was an alligator or a dragon somewhere. I am not sure if this was it.

Heading back out.

These boats are heading up the rest of the lake while we are going to complete the loop around Antelope Island and back to the marina.

Onward around the loop.

This guy misjudged how big the wake was. His kids in the bow did a face plant.

To complete the loop we had to go through this narrow, man made, blasted out channel.

How to bake you kids.

All the house boats seemed to tow a power boat of some kind.

And we were back. While there was no mind blowing scenery everything was very beautiful, making for a great morning. I love being out on a boat and can’t wait to get back to the cottage.

Arizona does not observe day light savings time so it is an hour behind Utah and Mountain Time. Since we are only going to be here 5 days we decided to stay on mountain time. It meant that instead of getting up at 7 to be ready for the trip we got up at what, for us, was 8.

The trip ended for us at around 1 pm. I had not planned anything else for the day and the sweaty climb back up from the dock convinced us to head back to the RV and the A/C.