Every now and again you have to do something a little out of the box. I have wanted to make a night run down the river to Havasu, and every time I get close to doing it something always comes up. I have tried to do it several times since we moved here four years ago, but something always comes up. The weather doesn't cooperate, people back out, kids get sick, you name it. It's always something.
So a few weeks back Stacy made some plans with some friends of ours Tyler and Jessica. We were going to go out in the boat for a little bit on Friday evening. I casually mentioned that we could go to Topock for dinner, kind of flying the night river run portion of it under the radar. Tyler and Jessica are in fact Havasu Locals but had never been to Topock so they agreed that it sounded like fun. Little did they know the "it sounds like fun" program has been referred to as "sketchy as shit" by most of my other boater friends.
Now that's not to say there wasn't some thought that went into this little run, after all it was supposed to be a "Blue Moon," one of the brightest in years as I was told... We should have a little navigational help running back through the river at night.
After meeting Pink Taco & Shintooo and family in the channel for a bit we set out towards the river. The sky was a bit overcast, the weather on the phones said possible showers, but those things are fairly inaccurate out here, and I was pretty confident the skies would part for my divine mission. If they didn't? Screw it it's not exactly like we are crossing the planes on foot here. We have a boat, cooler full of beers and waters, and some chips to snack on if we get stranded for the night.
Now I knew that Tyler and Jessica hadn't been to Topock before, but I wasn't sure if they had ever been to Pirates Cove. I figured if we are going all the way up there we better make sure all the basis are covered. So we stopped there first for a round or two before making our way to Topock.
I was kinda surprised that Tyler and Stacy both went straight for cocktails. I kinda figured this would be an easy night with a few beers. Note that Jessica isn't drinking they have just recently found out that she's pregnant. The sun had set at this point, and we were getting hungry, so it was time to cruise on over to Topock.
We walked out to the boat, and I took a look around and it was pitch black. I actually said to myself "well it's pretty early in the night the moon just isn't up yet." I truly am an optimist under any circumstances. So we idled out of the channel and started heading over to Topock.
We enjoyed a great dinner over at Topock and I told the now pretty shitfaced crew that we had a little time to kill because I wanted to wait until the moon was further up in the sky before we head back. We killed quite a few drinks at Topock, and the weather was perfect. We all ended up hanging out in the pool at Topock for about an half an hour.
Nobody was in a hurry to leave, but it was pressing somewhere between 9:30 & 10 by now, and a quick glance around at the sky pretty much confirmed my suspicions that I had at the Pirates Cove that we are pretty much screwed. There's not going to any moon at all, let alone some bright blue moon. I'm sure it was up there somewhere above the cloud cover, but we couldn't even tell what region of the sky it was in. It was pretty much pitch black due to the cloud cover.
Now there's two things you can do as the captain of the ship here if you're me.
1. You can just say screw it and we're idling all the way home.
2. You can just say screw it we are definitely idling all the way home and this is gonna be a long ass ride so we need to restock our supplies of beers and smokes and ice because god knows how long this is gonna take.. Especially if it starts raining on us. (I was smart enough to leave the bimini on the boat just in case that actually did happen)
Now in full disclosure here I will say their store had been closed since before we got there and the staff was nice enough to go in there and grab our much needed supplies. That being said 40.00 for a 12 pack, a pack of cigarettes and ice seems "excessive." Granted we had exactly zero cash on us, so we had to put it on the "tip" portion of either the dinner or one of the bar tabs (I dunno which) so I'm sure I got taxed a little on them opening the store, and the tip thing but still...
So now it's time to start making our way home, and we are plenty prepared with a full cooler, smokes, an IPOD with nothing but old school hiphop, and a lot of patience because we are going nowhere fast tonight.
So we idled and idled and we made it all the way through the gorge and devils elbow. That's not to say it was without incident, there was a few. It was so dark and with the shorelines being what they are sometimes you think you should go left, only to idle up and find out we should've gone right kinda deals. We were coming out of the no wake zone on the south side and I think we are all familiar with that little sandbar that sticks out. I'm sticking to the middle of the river if not even a little to the CA side to go around it and sure as shit "bump." Turned the key off and walked off the deck and we were beached on the sandbar right in the middle of the river. So it was time to take a break and stretch our legs a little bit.
[video=youtube;aJ2mEswSnXY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ2mEswSnXY[/video]
After that stop we continued to cruise on down the river at a snails pace when we came up on the sandbar, and while most in our situation would just drive on by, I had to stop. Who could resist stopping by the actual sandbar at midnight on your way home? The answer is not this guy. Pay no attention to Tyler's method of keeping time in the video he was seeing two watches at this point. Stacy wanted to keep pressing on to get home to the kids, but what's another 20 minutes for the babysitter at this point?
We hung out for a round or two again (as evident by the pic), and then proceeded southbound towards the lake. Now I have a hard enough time doing this in the daytime, doing it when it's pitch black outside was enlightening to say the least. I'm not sure how, but I'm pretty sure we ended up coming out of speed alley at some point back into the main river. I'm not entirely sure how we ended up where ever we were at in the first place. Luckily we did end up finding our way to the dredged area so we could make our way out onto the lake.
When we got out onto the lake the wind was blowing 15'ish mph so there was some wind chop, enough that I couldn't maintain an idle without getting everyone wet. I ended up running a real slow plane with the tabs down (15'ish mph) just to get us moving enough to span the swells as we made our way over to the launch ramp. The lights of the city were a welcome sight after hours and hours of idling home in pitch black.
[video=youtube;zbhJeoP_Auc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbhJeoP_Auc[/video]
You gotta give a little credit where credit is due on that video there. Wife backing the trailer up after that night.. Dave shifting, driving with one hand, filming with the other, 15 - 20 mph winds.. Kept the truck / wife in frame the whole time.. LOL Anyhow I'm gonna say it again and I will keep saying it.. Inexperience and lack of common sense plays a much larger roll in accidents, fatalities and overall danger on the water then alcohol ever will.
Which brings us to the end of the night. The ride home from the launch ramp to my house. Stacy and Tyler in the back of the truck still laughing about all the events of the night. From the crazy kayakers that were just starting their journey to Havasu at Topock at the same time we were, to the fishing boat we ran across and might have snagged a line or two of theirs on accident.
Tyler's wife Jessica wanted to learn how to drive with a trailer.
So she ended up driving the truck back to the house. Hope you guys enjoyed a little bit of what our late night Journey from Topock was like. If I ever do it again, I'll definitely make sure there's a full moon that isn't covered by clouds when I go. I will also be idling the whole way back whether I can see or not. After running across two sandbars rather unexpectedly, I'd rather not do that any faster then I was going. Hope to see some of you guys up there for dinner sometime!
RD
