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Orlando Bingles’ Western Adventure: Day 7

by Bingle on Jun.06, 2008, under Richard Bingle Family

Boy is it still hot!

We had spent the night before in Kingman, AZ, so we were able to get to Temple Bar Marina on Lake Mead at 10:00 a.m. to pick up our houseboat. After a fairly brief explanation, they set us free with a 50 foot houseboat on the waters of Lake Mead.

Unfortunately, Lake Mead is down about 80 feet from its normal levels, so the TomTom GPS we had purchased for the trip (which we had immediately named “Kare Kare”) was showing us water in some places where there was definitely now dry land! We headed east from the marina through the Virgin Straight to Gregg’s Basin and then north towards Sandy Point.

We had been instructed to find a sandy cove with shelter on three sides in which to beach the boat and tie up for the night. Around 3:00 p.m. we found a likely spot just south of Sandy Point and just north of South Cove which looked like a good candidate. There were a couple of “No Wake Zone” buoys near it (including one resting on a hunk of rock a good 20 feet out of the water) that we weren’t sure why they were there, but it didn’t deter us. We soon had the front of the boat beached and the stern tied up to stakes pounded into the sand on either side of the boat. We changed into our swimming suits and waded into the water. Wow, was it cold! But, it felt good since the air temperature was around 110 degrees. After checking the water depth off the stern, we all took turns trying the slide off of the top deck of the boat and in general relaxing in the water. The slide had a pump for bringing up lake water onto the slide so you wouldn’t get stuck and the slide ended at the height of the railing on the back of the boat so you would end up dropping about 4 feet through the air before hitting the water.

After a dinner of cheeseburgers cooked on the grill, Ashley and I played a game of Kahuna and we all generally relaxed after a busy first week of our adventure.

Later that evening we were a bit surprised to hear voices out on the rocks. A few minutes later four people came walking by along the shore in the dark and continued on around the point of the cove we were in. I’m not sure how far from us they ended up, but we heard them talking in the distance for a couple of hours, and even heard a baby crying nearby for a few minutes before we drifted off to sleep.

Next stop, more Lake Mead!


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