Today we took a boat tour up the Colorado river from Lake Havasu. The tour went just past the I-40 bridge over the river to Pirates Cove Resort and Marina. It included going through the Topock Gorge. We left at 10:30 in the morning and got back around 3:30 in the afternoon. We had a hour and a half layover at the Pirates Cove to eat lunch. It was a very interesting and scenic trip. I would recommend it to anyone that visits Lake Havasu City. The pictures are mostly scenery which means a lot of rock formations.
This was our boat for the tour. It is powered by three 460 cubic inch Ford V-8's which run the three water jet drives.
This is London Bridge in Lake Havasu City.
There are the Needles mountains.
Just a scenery shot.
This is a Bald Eagles perched on top of a very high cliff. He/she stays in this area according to the boat Captain.
Closer shot of the Eagle
Real up close. He/she didn't seem to mind the boat hanging around while we were taking pictures.
Scenery
These two rocks use to be used as a place to tie up the paddle wheel boats that use to haul cargo up and down the river. The captain said that before the dams were built on the river, it use to flood to the extent that these rocks were almost covered up with water and couldn't be used by the paddle wheel boats to tie up at night. They didn't like to go on down river from here at night because of the dangers of rocks and sand bars in the river.
Old highway 66 came through this area and this was a sign just on the California side of the river.
Pirates Cove where we ate lunch.
Pat and I met this lady and had our picture taken with her. Not sure what I was looking up at?
Here is our boat parked at the Pirates Cove. We sat by the very front side window.
This was an old airplane moored in the marina area. It has been converted to land on water with the floats.
An old pirates ship replica moored in the harbor.
This tower over the Pirates Cove restaurant is used for zip lining to some other towers that were across the harbor area. It was closed today.
Two yachts parked in the harbor.
This boat came in while we were at lunch. Checked it out after lunch. It has two V-10 engines which are attached to water jet drives. The captain of our boat said it would likely do over 100 mph.
The Pirates Cove Resort and Marina has these cabins for rent. They all face the harbor area and have a nice sandy beach between them and the water. This whole resort marina area was man made. The harbor and inlet from the river were dredged out so that a boat launching place could be built by California and also the marina and resort. The harbor area is around a mile in from the main river.
Mountains on the downriver side of interstate 40 at Topock.
More scenery.
Rocks
More rocks. It is very rugged country on both sides of the river in this area.
More
Looks a little like a castle at the top center.
More
A little hard to see, but these are sand drills in the rock walls. They were caused by the current of the river eating into the wall with all the sand and rocks carried by the current during flooding.
Close up of a sand drill.
Indian head with an eye. The story was that if you could see the open eye it was safe to travel on. If not, there was danger ahead. Guess that meant you didn't go after dark.
Closer shot with the eye more in view. It was safe for us to go on.
More scenery
Different colored rock.
Praying Indian head. You can see his hands clasp below his head.
These are the Indian Petroglyphs that are suppose to be over 3,000 years old.
More of the Petroglyphs
And more.
Last one.
These are the three water jet drives putting out a lot of water to move us on down river.
This is the wake of our boat and the water coming up from the jet drives.
That's the tour. Hope you enjoyed it. If you ever get here you should take the tour for yourself.
Patrick
