The marina is about 12 miles downstream from Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. Even though the river is calm because not much water is being released from Hoover Dam, a pontoon boat is nice and stable. Lot of comfortable seating, also. We could have taken along an extra 6 or 7 people.
Loading up. Here are the captain and first-mate!
And away we go.
This is the fish hatchery just down from the marina. More photos of this at the end because we visited this after our two-hour boat trip.
The river and canyon were gorgeous this morning.
This is a gauging station, meaning that it was used at one point to measure the depth of the water in the river. It was accessed a walkway hanging out over the cliff on the other side and then this cable car over the river. Sounds like a dangerous job to check water level here!
Since we only had the boat for a couple of hours, we had to turn back at the point above. You cannot boat all the way to the dam anyway.
Coming back, we had the right combination of shade and sun, so were able to see the bottom of the river. Very clear water, but could not see any fish!
The fish hatchery is just down the shore from the marina.
Can't tell from this picture, but they are raising humpbacked chub, which they said was endangered. All the fish for this year have already been released, so the ones here will mostly be released next year.
As we were leaving, one of the rangers came out of the building where the younger fish were and invited us in. There were some small aquariums where almost microscopic babies were being raised. As they grow, they will be moved to bigger and bigger tanks. After four years, they get released.
Overall, it was a perfect day, with light jacket weather, hardly anyone around, and a calm river! Nice.
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