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Further clarification from Charlie: "Third dock north of the bridge, West side of the river."
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Correction and additional information from Charlie: I always reach the Mare Island Causeway Bridge operators on VHF Channel 13 and that is what they have posted on their sign. Their phone number, which is actually the City of Vallejo operator who takes the call and transfers you, is 707-648-4313.
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Thanks to a timely link from Latitude 38, I found this hydrographic survey of the lower Napa River, completed in March by the Corps of Engineers:
Hydrographic Survey
Charlie's house is on sheet 14 (page 9 of the PDF). The subsequent pages show the surveyed Federal Navigation Channel all the way down to Napa River Light 3 off Vallejo, on sheet 25 (page 20 of the PDF).
We stuffed FUGU in the mud in the pink shoal area, one survey bar to the right (south) of the Brazos Drawbridge - and a couple of other spots (give light 7 a wide berth, just like it shows in the survey).
Any comments/observations?
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Last edited by BobJ; 11-04-2020 at 11:07 PM.
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Thanks Bob! I was concerned looking at my chart with my almost 7 foot draft. But this looks like I should be ok. Unless anyone knows different?
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Tony, in case you are thinking of continuing on upriver: Last year when we went all the way to downtown Napa it was shallow just opposite the downtown dock. Pivoting from the dock Dura Mater bumped up and over a sandbar. That said, I didn't make a note regarding whether it was low or high tide @ 6 am. DM draws 4.5'
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A year back RYC had a cruise out to Napa Valley Yacht Club. One 42 footer (Allison and Jerry) with a big rig had to come thru at low tide to avoid getting too close to the bridge (think their masthead crane was at near 61 feet off the water). They also drew 7 feet - and had no problem. That said... note "the outside of the bends" in the river are deeper then the "inside corners" as the tide flushes out the silt on the outside of the bends. And do not get within 5 feet of the marked edges of the channel... there are a few spots where the last dredge a few years back left a "mud shelf" a few feet "inside the channel". So... be slightly "outside" of the center of the marked channel and you will be good. And take it slow... 3k's... as its only mud and you can easily back off if you touch bottom. Last... don't go past Napa Valley Yacht Club in anything less then mid tide... there are some 4 foot depths between the yacht club and downtown Napa. I fish in my inflatable in this upper part of the river... and even the inflatable can run aground near downtown at low tide... :-)
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Napa River as you approach down town... high and low tide...
Note the daymark in the background compared to the daymark in the foreground... and that bit of dirt right between them.
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Oh... is it okay if one drives or bikes in? Is there a street address (though I suspect I can find it using Google Maps :-) )? And if anyone needs a bed to crash in Saturday night (on land) let me know... I live 10 minutes from Charlie's and have a guest house you can isolate in. :-)
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Yeah I think we will skip going under that bridge. We are 61 feet to the masthead and another 3 feet for the whip. I have no desire to test those measurements! But if we can get our act together to get the dinghy blown up we might run up in it! Looking at Charlie's dock, it looks like the water may be pretty shallow there. Anyone know?
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