Lake Mead - Solo Expedition

Latest Venture 10/18/17
Went all the way up to the north end of the Overton Arm.
Got blown out on my first try (9/13/17 - details follow this trip).

Click on any image to enlarge

Trip Route...

1st night...
Beautiful / Calm / Rain late...

Second Day...
Back past Temple Bar all the way to the northern tip of the Overton Arm.

Explored Echo Bay Marina (or what's left of it) on the way back south.

1pm Thurs. 10/19 wind starts from the south.
Took cover at Goat's Head Island and tied off completely protected (from the south)...
The entire cove was covered with white shells from clams or mussels or ?
Here's a close-up and one entire hillside (click to enlarge). Every white speck you see is a shell. Millions of them.

see large cove image here

5pm winds die off and had a peaceful bean, cheese and chicken burrito and a great zombie movie night.

8am Friday: Winds start again. Whitecaps building even 10 yrds past the bow. Waves are too large out in the channel
now to return to Temple Bar Marina as planned. Basically trapped in the cove.
Turned on the emergency radio for the forecast..."35-40 mph sustained winds with gusts up to 55 for the entire
Mohave and Mead area. Wind advisory in effect from 8am to 8pm pacific time.

I was not going anywhere soon. Anyway, the winds (that did reach their potential) died out about 3pm but the
damage was done out on the lake. Too ruff to go back. Decided to stay there again for that night.
Had several very strong vodka/cranberrys and toasted to survival of the windstorm...

Turned out a little premature on the toast. About 3 hours later (6pm) had a repeat dinner and movie night.
9pm winds picked up again but this time from the north (I was only protected from the south). This storm came in with very
cold 45 degree winds and were just as bad (if not worse) than what I just went through 6 hours ago.
At 1am, it was pitch black. I had 5 ropes out and was tied to everything I could find. I sat up all night trying to keep the bow into the wind
so not to blow sideways and end up breached on shore. This was a mess. Several times I lost my front anchor foothold and
for many hours thought my front anchor rope would break from the wind pressure on the hull.
The wind blew from 9pm to 7am. I had been there for 40 hours now and I HAD to get back to Temple Bar.
At the first sign of letting up, I bailed. Waves were huge going back but at least I was going with instead of against them.

Hobbled back into Temple Bar marina at 9am Sat. 10/21 with 3ft. whitecaps.
AWESOME.

9 / 13-17 / 2017
September 2017 set out to explore Mead. Had been there many years ago but had never seen the entire lake.
Took 4 days to get around this huge place. Quite an adventure. Thanks Sprint for 1 square mile of cell service in 4 days.

Click on images to enlarge...

Boat paths shown from mapsme.com / Google Earth Terrain