Feather Falls 06

When I think about the Feather Falls cruise, three words come to my mind, exciting, breathtaking, and LONG. It was a pretty awesome day. When I first woke up in the morning at 6:30 am I was expecting us to get ready to leave at 8:00. Instead I awoke to only see my mom looking at me telling me something. I wasn’t really awake so I could barley make out what she said. “Chris, I want you to get dressed, go outside, and help your dad clean up the toilet paper in the front yard.” That’s right. We got T.P’d! What a great thing to wake up to. So my brother (Grant) and I cleaned up the toilet paper and before long we were on the road towards Oroville.

Luckily my brother and I brought our p.s.p’s (PlayStation Portable) for the car ride. When we pulled into the parking lot at Oroville Lake I looked out over the water and it looked beautiful. Soon after we pulled into the parking lot Wade and Betty Ann Hough brought their Raven. Accompanying them was Betty Ann’s brother, Paul. Then Paul Melcon bought his Prindle 18-2. His crew for the day was Karen Cole. Also Jim and Michelle Marrozo came with their Thistle. We rigged our boat up and before we knew it we were on the water.

When I pushed our boat away from the dock into the lake there was no wind. So Wade Hough graciously offered us a tow out into the wind. We said yes and threw them our tow line and began the slow move out into the main body of the lake. We hollered towards the Raven to untie us when we hit wind. We instantly hit some wind and began making our long voyage to Feather Falls.

Click on Photos for full size version.
In Photo Left, Wade and Bettie Ann Hough with Crew Paul gave us a tow out from the dock to the windline out past the houseboats.
The center photo is of Jim and Michelle Marazzo taking a tow out in Wade and Betty Ann's Red Thistle.
The photo on the right is of Paul Melcon and Karen Cole taking a short tow out in Paul's Prindle catamaran.

After doing this cruise for the third time in a row we know from experience that you need more than enough food. So we got Safeway Signature sandwiches and man was it worth it. We all had one foot long for each of us. They were delicious. All the food we brought definitely was a good way to remember it’s worth the long duration.
When we were about a little over half way there we heard a motorboat zooming up behind us. It passed us and we sighed in relief. It was Mike Maddox and Paul Richie with their wives Gisela Richie and Helena Laura. That was our ticket home. With Mike’s White Knight and her two 150 horse power engines we knew we were going to have a tow home if we needed it.

Photo Left is the Barr family sailing in Pink Slip. From L. to R. are Chris, Grant and Kelly.
Photo Center is the Marazzos and Paul Melcon approaching the Hwy 162 bridge. The water was only 1 ft. from the lake's maximum capacity.
Photo right: Mike and Helena Laura came out to serve as safety / tow boat with Paul and Gisela Ritchie coming along as crew.

When we arrived at the little cove with the beautiful view of the falls (see photo) we all knew in our minds that this was the climax of the sail. We anchored in the cove we usually stop in. We knew no one would be there because the rock is surrounded by poison oak. We took the chance and relaxed there. We swam, ate, and relaxed. (See photo’s) When we were getting ready to leave my dad was the first one to enter our Thistle. He jumped into the boat from the rock and totally scraped his arm on the Forestay. At first he thought it was going to be okay. But it wasn’t. Just to give you an idea of how his battle scar turned out, (see photo).

Photo Left: The view of Feather Falls was spectacular this year, due to heavy flow from mountain smowmelt.
Photo Center: Some of us anchored together within sight of the falls for a well deserved picnic and swim.
Commodore Barr got a nasty bruise when he tried to step into a Thistle with the centerboard up. Only his pride was seriously injured.

I knew that arriving here was fun, but then came the moment we have all not been waiting for………. THE TOW HOME. DUH-DUH-DUH-DAW.

Before I tell you the story of the voyage home, I want to fill you in about my experiences at the falls. In my opinion this cruise was phenomenal. It was even better than our cruises in 2004 and 2005. There were several reasons for this.

First, we had more food and drink in our boat this year and it was better stuff. We had lots of turkey sandwiches on dutch crunch rolls and Mom bought us two tubes of Lays Stacks (potato chips in a plastic tube). To drink, we had Gatorade, water, Diet Pepsi and -for the adults - beer. For desert, we had a huge bag of chilled grapes. Yummy!

A second reason that this cruise was better than past trips was that we had an extended time anchored in our favorite cove near the falls. I think we were there for over an hour. When we first dropped anchor, Mike Maddox pulled in close and anchored his big power boat, "White Knight". About 15 minutes later, Paul Melcon and his friend Karen pulled into our cove with his Prindle 18-2. He tied his boat to ours and had a picnic with us on a giant rock. We did happen to see the Marazzo's Thistle and the Hough's Raven pass by our cove, but they chose not to stay with us. We figured that they both were going to find their own cove.

Photo Left: Paul Melcon rafted up with the Barr's Thistle. It was a great spot to picnic.
Chris and Grant Barr spent most of the time at the falls in the water. It was the perfect temperature for a swim.
"White Knight" was anchored close to our spot, with Vice Commodore Paul Ritchie relaxing on the bow.

The swimming this year was slightly better than in past years because we brought our goggles and swim fins. The water was a little cooler this year, but that's how I like it. However, when I dove down deep there was icy cold water about 12 feet down. My Dad tried to dive down to our anchor, but he said it was too cold for him down there. My brother and I swam over to check out White Knight, anchored about 75 feet from our picnic rock. We did not get a chance to see the inside of the boat until later in the day.

When it was time to go, Paul Melcon untied his Prindle from our boat and paddled over to White Knight. As Paul tied his tow line, we got back in our boat and Mike Maddox threw us a tow line with perfect accuracy. Once our anchor line was all put away, we pushed off from shore and started our long tow home.

On Left: We started our tow home after over an hour at the falls.
About 2/3 of the way out of the canyon, we finally caught up with the Marazzos. They had been tacking the whole time we swam. They seemed glad to take a tow the rest of the way.
Photo right: Paul and Karen sailed back the last 4 1/2 miles in a nice breeze.

During the tow home, we enjoyed views of water falls, eagles nests and lots of trees. We all put on more sunscreen and snacked on chips and grapes. To pass the time, my Dad gave Chris and I some challenging math problems. For example, "How much rope could you buy for $100 if each foot costs you $1.50?" If you haven't figured out the answer, it is 66 2/3 feet of rope.

About 2/3 of the way home, we caught up with Jim and Michelle Marazzo tacking their way home. We pulled along side and offered them a tow. They gladly accepted the offer .While they were attaching their tow line, Paul Melcon decided to drop his tow line and sail the rest of the way back. Once our tow boat got moving again, we headed for the SS Relief (a floating bathroom). While the adults were using the bathroom, Chris and I got to go aboard White Knight and check out Mike's radar. Mike said he could see things with his radar up to 16 miles away!

As we approached the green bridge, we went around the second concrete pillar from the left, closely followed by Paul Melcon who was sailing. Those Prindles can go pretty fast! We untied our bow lines as we got close to the dock. There were a lot of motor boats using the dock, so we parked in shallow water on one side of the boat ramp and Dad ran to get our car and trailer.

On Left: The tow under the bridge looks like a tight squeeze looking up from the boat. The Raven's mast is so tall, they had to go around to the left of the piller in this photo!
The Prindle looks like it is easily going to clear the bridge, but they are still approaching in this photo.
For a video Clip of our Picnic spot at the falls click here (10 MB file, up to 5 min. download with slow DSL)

We visited with our friends as we put away our boats. The Houghs had landed a while before we did, so they left before we did. On our drive home, we finished our tasty Safeway Signature Supreme sandwiches and drank ice cold water to wash it down. When we got home we were pretty happy with our accomplishment but we were exhausted too. It had been quite an adventure.