After breakfast this morning, we gather on the boat for group pictures of us taken by the crew with our cameras. Everybody change places and we take pictures of our crew.
Now it's time to partially disassemble the boat. First, the straps holding the side pontoon are loosened. Then the pontoon is lifted up and into the boat.
Carolyn turns the boat around so the same procedure can be done on the opposite side. A little more effort and the second pontoon is inside the boat.
Then it's time to undo the pontoon air filler caps and deflate the pontoons. Pretty soon our boat is considerably thinner than when we started the trip. This reduction procedure is necessary to allow the boat to be trailered at South Cove after the crew makes the long six-hour trip there.
About an hour and a half later, the jet boat arrives. We say goodbye to our crew, hop in, and off we go. This thing really hauls.
The jet boat captain stops by the recently completed Hualapai Skywalk for some picture taking. A few minutes later he points out an interesting bat cave that used to have a cable strung between two towers on opposite sides of the Canyon. That allowed a cable-car to reach the bat cave.
We complete our jet boat ride to South Cove in just under two hours. Lake Mead is more than fifty feet below normal elevation, its lowest level in over forty years. The concrete boat ramp ends well above the current water line. The remaining dirt and gravel ramp probably makes for an interesting raft loading experience for our crew.
Box lunches are waiting for us on the bus. The drive back to Flagstaff takes over three hours. Then it's to Albuquerque for the night and on to Oklahoma the next day. MAIN INDEX | HIKING INDEX | BACK TO DAY 6 | FORWARD TO POSTSCRIPT
|
