When we were heading to San Francisco Bay little did we know that the bay was also a massive basin for an expansive inland river delta and estuary with a total area, including both land and water, of  about 2,800 square kilometres. It actually supplies 80% of California with water. The main contributing rivers are the Sacramento River, coming in from the north, and the San Joaquin River, coming in from the south. The Delta is a labyrinth of sloughs and waterways with small communities, extensive farmlands and abundant wildlife, including the great blue heron, egrets, ducks, geese, and fish. The California Delta is considered to be one of the best cruising areas in California.

We learned much of this from going through the Bay Model while in Sausalito, a working hydraulic model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta System that is approximately 320 feet long in the north-south direction and about 400 feet long in the east-west direction.

The Bay Model, Sausalito

It illustrates how the water flow of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are reproduced, including ship channels, rivers, creeks, sloughs, the canals in the Delta, fills, major wharfs, piers, slips, dikes, bridges, and breakwaters. Pretty cool! Really helped us to understand the extensiveness of the Delta before we headed up.

Warmest Water and First Private Anchorage!

We chose to go up the Sacramento River to Decker Island, then then crossed over, through the 3 Mile Slough, to the San Joaquin River.

Our final destination was Bedroom Number 2 in Potato Slough. Love that name!  What happens in bedroom #2, stays in bedroom #2!!  Not really, but we could have gotten up to any kind of shenanigans as we were the only ones in this tiny little pocket anchorage!  We hiked on the levies, miles upon miles of rock and dirt shoring up the waterways that were built by the Chinese after they finished building railroads across the US.  All the levies have roads on them and provided us with the much needed opportunity to stretch our legs. The water was warm up the Delta, 24.5C so we also swam and worked out the paddle boards.  Here is a tiny glimpse and sound bite of what Bedroom #2 was like:

Heres a few of our favourite pics of the Delta trip!