Well, the nice lady at the Walnut Grove Post Office said our general delivery package arrived on September 6th and, well, wouldn’t we like to come pick it up? So we promised her we’d be in on Monday the 16th. I am super excited to add another of Monica’s knitting wonders to our boat.

Our days of easy blackberry picking over, David made one last dash to the patch yesterday morning in the canoe. Upon his return, we hauled in the anchors and followed another boat out of the Potato Slough so we could learn the “short cut” into the Mokelumne River from the South. There are a couple sand/mud bars that run down the middle of the lower Mokelumne River, some with tule tufts atop, some without. When we visited the Delta in 2010, we stayed to the NW channel and followed close around that W side of the River until entering the Georgiana Slough. This time, we were taking the SE channel and following it up around until almost the Georgiana Slough. A new Delta friend assured us they’d never seen less than 7′ or so of water in this section. I saw 6′ on the charts and made a mental note that we’d just make sure our exit from the Potato Slough was at +1′ tide (roughly noon).

The winds were up in the high teens as we entered the San Joaquin River, so we were crabbing our way along the narrow channel following the petite Mary Joy when I suddenly thought “how smart is this to follow a boat with a three foot draft (board up) through the shallows?” and just about then, the FLS was blinking red-red-red all around, the depth was showing 6’10” and then I could feel Mahdee’s 6’4″ draft drag across the bottom, but thankfully we kept moving along and the depths increased to more than 30′ almost instantly. Ah, sigh.

As we continued on up around the bend, I started getting worried again when instead of making a hard jog to the left to avoid a big area that the charts show as 6′ deep and having a wreck in it, our friend led us onwards. David was at the helm and I watched the FLS. Sigh, good depth of 11 or more feet all the way through.

The remainder of our trip was pleasant and uneventful. We anchored as far up the Georgiana Slough as was practical without being in the town of Walnut Grove. We are about a mile from town center. The slough has roadways on top of the levies on both sides and it would have been quieter about 2 miles from town where one side is a farm road. The shorter walk warranted the increased traffic noise. The trees are bigger in this area and overall it is prettier, too.

The view off the port stern side of the boat is of the open waters of the Georgiana.

Beryl was much more interested in the view off the starboard stern where little fishes might lurk in the shadowy waters below.

The view towards the front of the boat from the cockpit is also nice.

While Beryl and I were inspecting and photographing the views, David was eating a dinner of…blackberries, of course. This time the recipe was to eat Ikea Knackebrod Flerkorn/multigrain crispbread with a blackberry-beef-walnut-almond-salad spread made with honey, mayo, and a bit of balsamic vinegar. Yummm…

After a refreshing night’s rest–the boat couldn’t move more than a couple feet in any direction since we had bow and stern anchors combined with bow, stern, and mid-ships lines tying us to big trees on shore–David walked into town and retrieved my general delivery package. He also stopped by a little butcher shop and bought the first fresh meat we’ve had in a couple weeks. So it was Yummy decadent mushroom and onion hamburgers for lunch.

I opened the much awaited general delivery package and said “wow!” Here’s a photo of the awesome afghan that our friend Monica made for cold nights aboard Mahdee: