The Gallery
The Anchorage and RC Sailing galleries are ramdom images of both subjects. Most are old and dating back into the last decade. They will be refreshed sometime in 2012 while at Cloud 9. They and this site is a work in progress.

The Meadows Anchorage is five miles northeast of the Walnut Grove Marina, outside the town of the same name. Along Snodgrass Slough is the half mile mooring for large boats in Meadows Slough. The anchorage is visited by boat owners staying a day, the weekend or for the summer. The regular community is around 20 boats and arrive over a couple of weeks beginning the end of April and stay as late as mid October. On holidays the mooring could swell to 35 boats. This is a community and welcomes all; houseboats, cruisers, sailboats and boaters shore camping. Some is State Park land and some open space. Regulation is minimal and use managed by reasonable personal environmental etiquette. 

The boats all moor on the north side of the Meadows Slough with their bow facing south for views over the waterway. Many are connected to the shore with ramps. Here there are about three miles of trails along a protecting levees with 47 acres along the anchorage under a canopy of Oaks, Cottonwood trees and Blackberry brambles. Here too are some prepared spaces behind the boats for lawn games and social gatherings.

This area has a long history for this use going back in the early 1950's with long tales of lore. Some boaters are second generations in heritage and boats replace over the years with the same name. The Cloud 9's, shown in the gallery, have been at the anchorage since 1978 and the Smile with same owners (this writer) going back to 1973.

The Meadows Anchorage is part of the northern part of the Sacramento River Delta System that stretches south through the San Joaquin Valley to beyond Stockton and provides about 1000 miles of waterways for recreational boating and commercial interests including agriculture. The delta was reclaimed through a system of levees for these waterways to provide rich peat bottom land for agriculture and some ranching. This area is also part of the West Coast Flyway and to the resident migratory tree dwelling birds, ducks, geese and cranes arriving in the Fall. The West Coast Swallow summers here from their winter home in Capistrano. They are littered around the boats to the polite tolerance of the boat owners. Generations have been hatched and grown up beneath the Cloud 9.

This place is unique...so far.