Houseboating on Lake Mead



We set up this trip last year in November for Kari and Dylan and the boys, and Kyle and Julie to join us on Lake Mead during late July for some fun in the sun.  Average temperature was 105 while we were there and unfortunately, Kyle and Julie did not get to make the trip (missed you guys!).  Oh and by the way, Kari and Dylan didn't live in Tennessee when we booked this bad boy either.  So they had a two-plus day drive to Henderson Nevada and we had a massive 4 hour drive from So. Cal.  I was hauling a boat  and they were hauling 4 dogs (another story) and two very active boys.

We arrived to find out our house boat was destroyed in a monsoon a few weeks earlier, but have no fear, the 50 footer we rented was now a 59 footer....nice upgrade Gramps!  Best part was no extra money!!  So we got our 'lesson' on the boat and where to beach it and not beach it and we were off!  On all of the houseboat trips we have been on, and I believe the count is 6, I have never driven the big boat. Well this was my chance....I even got a captain's hat for renting the boat!  Nice!  And the most expensive hat I now own!!  We found a decent cove about an hour away from the marina and beached the boat and tied off.  Dylan and his friend, who was with us for the day only, hammered in the stakes and Kim put her Montana knot skills to work on the left side of the boat and we were secure!  We swam, rode around in the little boat, and swam some more and ate.  Did I mention it was 105!!

The first two days went off without a hitch.  Life was good...until Saturday night, or actually Sunday morning about 1:30AM.  Kari woke us up from a dead sleep and said the boat's loose.  Apparently I sat straight up and shouted, "we're floating in the ocean?" or something profound like that.  Anyway, with two boys and four dogs sleeping, the four sleepy, tired adults tried with a pen light and no moon to figure out where we were.  According to whom you talk with, we were in one of four spots in our cove.  What we pieced together is that the left side stakes pulled up and were in the lake and the boat was being held by the right side stakes...we had flipped around completely (thank you monsoon wind) and the left side of the boat was banging against the shore.  Our little boat was also loose and up against the shore, but far enough away that we weren't going to crunch it with the big boat.  I started the engines (mistake) and tried to back us up into the cove and promptly broke a fin on the left hand outboard.  Nice!

Well, we had no idea about what we were going to do about the two 'lost stakes' that ended up in the lake. Enter Montana girl - remember the knots she put into the left side ropes....they held together and the stakes were at the bottom of the lake!  So we hammered in the stakes (way in...actually so far in that we couldn't get one of them out the next day) and retied the boat.  This wasn't before - Kari and her pen light slide down the hill about 20 feet; I cut his thumb open pretty good sliding down the hill and then splattered blood every time I swung the sledge hammer on the stake; Dylan was the man as we re-hammered in the stakes - doing about 2/3rds of the hammering at 3AM in the morning and Montana was shoving the bow of the houseboat down the shore as we tried to get it beached again.  Two and a-half hours after Kari woke us up....we were anchored again.

The next day, Sunday, we decided to move the boat to a better cove (you think?) and we found a beauty around the corner.  With one outboard working just fine, we made our way over and beached/tied off.  Here are a couple of shots off the back porch.

We had some great day trips in the little boat, traveling to other marina's (Temple Bar and Las Vegas Marina) to get lunch or just make our ice cream and gas run.  We did some skiing and a lot of floating in the middle of the lake.  Jaxon and Kazen did great and never once hesitated in jumping into the lake to swim, even way out in the middle!  Las Vegas Marina had huge fish near the docks and they loved to be fed any food.  The boys would throw in popcorn and the fish would go crazy....probably  50 fish just crawling over each other.  One trip we made was to Hoover Dam...not as impressive from the water side...

 

 Here is our little ski boat as we were getting ready...she's eleven years old and still plugging along!

I'll close with the story about our trip from our new beach spot on Monday to empty the holding tanks and top off the gas tank.  So we headed back to Calville Bay.  I decided to tell my death-defying story to Steve, the driver/mechanic who met us at the break water to take us into the dock.  I told him about the prop I broke and the fact that one of the two toilets on board was stopped up - both of which COST money to fix.  Prop = $130ish and $35+ for the toilet.  And probably more $$$ was what we were thinking.  So Steve pulls his mechanic boat up behind our houseboat and has the prop fixed under 5 minutes and in the meantime, the toilet was being repaired.  I asked Steve how I pay for the prop, and he said no problem - no charge.  Really - and the same story for the toilet - no charge!  Really nice! 

We had a great time!  We finished off the week and then, back off to the house - 4 hours for some and then two plus days for the Tennessee folks.