California Foothills inland of San Pablo Bay
We did it. We sailed up the Sacramento River, past Old Town Sac to Discovery Bay and back to San Francisco Bay. Shallow water, numerous low bridges, nonexistent marinas and birds where some of the things we encountered and enjoyed.
We had two goals: we had to pick up the keys for our new mail box in Roseville and we wanted to visit our family which includes 8 grandchildren. The sailing and nature was a bonus.
The California delta is laced with levees which were an attempt to channelize the river and protect farms. They have created "islands" that have subsided and are now lower than the river. Between the levees are sloughs that snake every which way. Some are pretty barren, as the main river channel is, and some are filled with marshes, riparian vegetation and lots of birds and fish. One of these sloughs is called Steamboat Sough; named because the steamboats used to ply its waters. It seemed interesting so we decided to check it out.
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Steamboat Slough
We had managed to sail quite a ways up the river. Once we entered the sloughs we were forced to motor. We had to watch the charts very closely since the water was usually less than 10 feet deep and the deep part of the slough kept moving back and forth between the banks.
We anchored twice behind Decker Island and were able to watch red wing blackbirds, egrets, great blue herons, starlings and a kestrel. One night an owl perched on a snag directly above our boat. Each night flock after flock of black birds flew across the sky. I couldn't figure out where they were coming from or going to. I never saw them go in the reverse direction. One morning a river otter was swimming near the boat. |
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| Evening on the delta |
One of the interesting features of the delta is the number of wrecks along the banks. We continually came across them. I imagine they floated away in floods and were never recovered.
We saw this old stern wheeler as we headed up river. It was beautiful and it seemed such a shame that it was just going to rot. On the way down the river we passed it again and noticed that floatation bags had been put in place and it looked like it might be saved after all.
We were a little worried about the bridges but it turned out to be very easy as long as you got there while they were staffed. There were three types:
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| Bascule bridge |
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| Train swing bridge at Old Sac |
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| The gold lift bridge at Sacramento |
The lift bridge at Sacramento was beautiful. It looked as though it was covered with gold leaf. Very appropriate for the capital of the golden state.
I was amazed at how nice the attendants were. I would state "We are 1/2 mile up river from the bridge and would like it opened please." I always got a "Right away skipper." Usually the bridge was opened within 5 minutes. The only real wait we had was for a train transiting the swing bridge. I had to wonder what these people do all day. There aren't that many tall boats going under the bridges. They are probably thrilled for the opportunity to do something.
This cable ferry presented a bit of a problem. The cable, which you can see trailing to the left, is just below the surface and we thought we might have come to the end of the road. The attendant assured us that there was seven feet of clearance in the very middle when the ferry was at dock. It looked pretty iffy to me but I slowly ghosted over the cable, expecting to flip over the cable at any second. Fortunately we crossed without incident.
We were often amused by what we saw along the river and sloughs. I was really surprised by how many people decorated their boats for Halloween. Some rivaled houses that I've seen. I couldn't get a picture unfortunately.
Once we got to Discovery Park we ran into a little difficulty. We wanted to anchor at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers. It was shallow and we had a hard time finding a place to set the anchor. When I started seeing ZERO feet over and over again on the depth meter I insisted that we give up and find another spot. We had noticed two black and white stripped buoys but didn't pay much attention to them thinking that they were marking the swimming area. But once we were dead in the water we could see that they said "warning wing dam". Now I realized what the two little dashes extending from the shore on the chart meant (why didn't it say what it was like every other little icon!) A wing dam is an underwater dam which apparently does something to control the flow of the river. Our boat was now stuck on top of it.
We tried kedging anchors and all it did was pull the boat over on its side. This was not fun. Finally a local fisherman came by and asked "Are you caught on the dam?" and then offered to pull us off. Apparently we aren't the only ones to have done this. With what appeared to be little effort he took a line and pulled us off. I could get out of there fast enough! Latter Greg said "Now we're even." (Only my grounding didn't cost as much.)
This looked more like something you would see in Washington.
Californian law provides for art in public places. This is the water intake for Sacramento. You can see the old one to the left. The new one has an interpretive walkway, viewing balconies and colorful round mirrors embedded in the glass walls to create a kaleidoscopic effect. Tax dollars at work.
One of the last interesting sights as we left the sloughs and entered Suisun Bay was the Mothball Fleet.
Dozens of huge outdated battleships waiting for who knows what fate. All I could think of was the millions of dollars we as taxpayers spent on them and now they just sit there rusting away. Anyone interested in buying a slightly used destroyer?
Do I have to mooove?
