Days 14-17
We were all very excited as we headed the 5 miles from Page to Waheap Marina, to pick up our home for the next 3 days – a houseboat!
Our Mountain Man morphed into Captain Ed….
We cruised around by day, (at the very leisurely and fuel efficient speed of 5mph)
then moored at different beaches each night.
We enjoyed the magnificent scenery of Lake Powell and being able to swim, slide, kayak, fish and relax.
The houseboat comes surprisingly well equipped with everything you need. The kitchen had a full size fridge and freezer (perfect, we found, for chilling our beer and wine and freezing the vodka), oven and microwave. This may seem normal for everyone else but after having a cool box for a fridge and cooking on a camping stove this feels like the height of luxury for us! The only thing missing was a dishwasher – bummer – but we just made the children do the washing up! There was a tiny “master” bedroom, two other double beds, a bathroom with a great shower and massive upstairs sun deck.
The kids learnt how to steer the boat, read the map, spot buoys, dig holes and bury the anchors on shore.
They also made use of the stove – to make a cake – we didn’t have flour with us but pancake mix actually made a great alternative – and the Nutella icing was inspired!
We did have one ‘incident’ when we ‘lost’ the gangplank. It had become trapped under the boat during the night when the wind moved our position (yup, I guess the anchors may not have been secured well enough after all…). It was a real life Crystal Maze challenge to retrieve it – it took 45 minutes, all 4 brains, various bits of rope and a kayak….we succeeded first try and amazingly no one lost their temper!
We are travelling with two fishing rods and these came out for the first time on the trip. The boys used anchovies as bait and succeeded in catching several fish including an 18” stripy bass. Ed insisted on cooking it even though en route to the boat we’d spent a small fortune at Safeway and the fridge was already stuffed full of gourmet food!
I had brought my blow up mattress and sleeping bag and had 3 brilliant nights’ sleep up on the top deck in the open air, with not a snore to be heard and the most incredible sunrise views.
Holidaying on a houseboat had been on my Bucket List for years, ever since I saw a travel show which featured Lake Powell. And obviously hurtling down the slide & splashing into the water was part of the deal. So I did it – I just hadn’t banked on the water being quite that cold – it wasn’t like that in the TV show!
Lake Powell is stunning and enjoying it from a houseboat makes for a fabulous, relaxed trip (as long as you don’t loose the gangplank). The kids say it’s the best thing we have done so far… It’s the certainly loads of fun, especially if several families were to go together!…When we docked on the last day we got the chance to look around one of the new, larger, 8 birth boats. It was actually quite incredible – like a luxurious, private, floating boutique hotel – with granite kitchen counter tops, flat screen TV’s and en suite marble bathrooms! Came with a pretty price tag too but just thought we’d mention it…in case anyone fancies a trip in the future?
What Ed Says:
Next Destination: Bryce and Zion National Parks, (back in Utah)
12000 miles in an orange truck 