Delta Doo Dah Doin’s

It’s that season — you know, the one between midsummer and fall, ‘backtoschool’ — and the Delta Doo Dah’s summer vacation of sailing and playing in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is coasting toward the finish.

Latitude 38’s Delta Doo Dah is a free-form cruising rally: Sailors can travel anytime from late May to early September and explore anywhere their fancy takes them within the eponymous region. To facilitate bonhomie among rally members and offer some structure for those who enjoy that sort of thing, we peppered the season with official Delta Doo Dah events, including last weekend’s mini-cruise from Owl Harbor to Stockton Sailing Club.

Delta Doo Dah visitors were invited to stay overnight on Friday, August 12, at Owl Harbor for free, and the staff served up a fabulous complimentary breakfast buffet on Saturday morning featuring eggs fresh from the marina’s own hens.

That evening, Stockton Sailing Club had invited the Delta Doo Dah fleet members to join them for their retro Burger Bash & Classic Car Show. A leisurely afternoon sail in mostly light air would get the cruisers there in plenty of time for the 5 p.m. start of the event. 

Gregory Towers and Jillian Cripps had planned to base their Ranger 23 out of Owl Harbor for a month, but that’s turned into six weeks, so that they can experience more of what Greg calls "Delta delights." On the sail up to Stockton, they anchored at Walter’s Island to take a swim. "We were dying of heat." It was calm when they anchored, but then a cluster of powerboats came by and chopped up the water. Their plan for Sunday was to anchor in Mildred Island (which is permanently flooded) and return to Owl on Monday to complete a three-day weekend.

Instead of taking their boat to Stockton, the crew of the Bethel Island-based O’Day 37 Namaste sailed over to Bradford Island, where skipper Larry White has an ‘in’ — he’s the vice commodore of Bay View Boat Club. BVBC has property on Bradford, which is located west of Fisherman’s Cut between the San Joaquin and False River. The two couples later drove over to SSC to catch the tail end of the event and socialize with fellow Doo Dah’ers.

Free registration for the Doo Dah will remain open until August 26. We’ll be collecting stories and photos from fleet members through September 1 for inclusion in a feature scheduled for publication in the October issue of Latitude 38.