San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
DELTA DREAM STILL AFLOAT
about how they got here. Like Ron Biale, 50, who moved from the Sierra foothills when he stumbled upon the opportunity to buy an old schoolhouse in the onetime railroad town of Terminous, north of where the cruise ship moors. He’s turned the historic building into an art studio, where he refurbishes vintage travel trailers.
Yong Simas, 61, is the bartender at a roadhouse that bears her name on Whiskey Slough Road in Holt, a short drive south of Willson’s boat. She came from Korea in 1984, married a farmer from Portugal and, when he passed, fulfilled her dream of buying and running her own saloon. She lives in a mobile home out back.
Deeper in the delta are members of the Super Secret Ship Club, a loose fraternity of men and women who’ve wanted nothing more than to hold out on the water. Most are just legends today — but Bill Conner, 89, is alive. Once an activeduty U. S. Marine, he has flown an American flag above his floating compound on a secluded arm of the San Joaquin River for four decades.
He and his wife once owned what used to be a family resort, called Lost Isle. After years of entertaining summer boaters on a spit of palm trees and sandy riverbanks, they sold the property. It became a party destination for the muscleboat set with thatchedroof bars and wetTshirt contests — until a fatal stabbing presaged its shutdown. After they sold, Conner’s wife moved to the mainland. He moved to a barge.
Since 1981, that barge has morphed into a convoy of anchored boats and platforms outfitted with tiki decor that Conner has called home. The peculiar river fortress houses fern gardens, an exercise bike, a propane stove, musical instruments and a 55gallon plastic drum to collect drinking water.
“You do a little gardening, you get tired, you take a nap,” said Conner, forced by recent surgeries to spend time resting at a marina outside Stockton. “A lot of people would like to do this: have your own island and live happily ever after.”
David Wheeler, 63, has similar wishes. The businessman in Texas, who grew up boating in the delta and later ran a string of Chuck E. Cheese franchises in Northern California, has set his sights on resurrecting a piece of his youth at the nowshuttered
Lost Isle. He and a group of investors say they hope to begin building a new restaurant, bar, bandstand and docks in 2022, though they’ve made similar pledges before.
The closest thing to the Lost Isle freeforalls today may be Ephemerisle, sometimes called the Burning Man of the water. The annual festival draws an eclectic mix of boaters, seasteaders and artists who gather in yachts and rafts to create an ad hoc river city, with gangplanks, ladders and swings. The pandemic, and state recommendations to avoid groups, didn’t deter this year’s event, which took place in July.
Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, himself a delta fixture with his pipe, bushy beard and words of wisdom on conservation for anyone who will listen, notes that the region still has a wild streak, but it’s tamer now.
“You don’t really have the freedom that you once did,” he said. “There’s really a microscope on the delta today. It’s the centerpiece of California’s water.”
When Willson returned to the delta in 2012, a turn toward law and order was just one of the challenges awaiting his revival effort. He and the Aurora, pulled in by tugboat, were initially welcomed into a lively marina called Herman and Helen’s. The owner expected the new jumbo tenant to lure visitors to his docks and waterside cafe about 15 miles northwest of Stockton.
“People would come take pictures of it, he figured. They would come out here in their wedding dresses,” Willson said.
It didn’t work out that way. The marina was in debt, and San Joaquin County began taking issue with alleged septic shortfalls and illegal boat moorings. Before anything could get resolved, the owner skipped town and the county ordered the marina cleared.
Willson didn’t leave, though, and has since kept the county at bay, arguing that local regulators don’t have jurisdiction over his ship.
“The Aurora does not belong there,” Zoey Merrill, deputy counsel for San Joaquin County, said in an interview, noting that the city of Stockton has an intake for its water supply nearby. “It is a potential nightmare from an environmental ( standpoint).”
The county’s crackdown brought an unforeseen problem for Willson. He and his girlfriend, Jin Li, 40, who until then had spent much of their time at her apartment in Union City or his house in Santa Cruz, learned that the newly emptied docks left no one around to keep watch over the Aurora. Thieves arrived, from land or sea, prompting the couple’s reluctant decision to move aboard fulltime.
“We really had no choice,” said Li.
Living on the Aurora took some adjustment. Li quit her job as an office manager at a real estate company in Oakland, instead selling odds and ends on eBay. The energetic cocaptain of the ship, born in Jinzhou, China, compares her new home to an enormous house in the middle of nowhere.
The biggest issue, Li recalled as she stood on a deck on a warm, clear afternoon, was what others thought about her life in the delta.
“I have a friend who says, ‘ Why don’t you just tell Chris to quit what he’s doing?’ But I don’t want to bring him down. He would have regrets,” Li said. “I guess I’m a little crazy, too.”
Last year, Willson spoke at a packed City Council meeting in Isleton ( Sacramento County) to make a case for moving the Aurora to the waterfront town. There, he explained, it would finally have a chance to shine.
Residents of Isleton, a former steamboat stop on the Sacramento River, have been looking to jumpstart an economy that has languished since the canneries closed decades ago. Some think a remodeled Aurora would attract tourists to the sleepy shops and restaurants.
Isleton City Manager Chuck Bergson initially supported the idea but recently said the ship faced headwinds. A few believe it’s too large for the town’s wharf. Others say the Aurora just isn’t in good enough shape for visitors.
One alternative may be back in the Bay Area in Redwood City, where Willson said he’s talked with a tech company about using the boat for employee housing. The strangest offer, Willson said, may have been the one posed by a San Francisco nightclub owner who drove to the Aurora
in a former police car marked “Sex Squad” and asked to lease the ship as an adult entertainment venue.
Before the boat goes anywhere, Willson wants to finish the restoration. He said he can get it mostly done in two years, though there are skeptics. Two other large, disabled boats, a lighthouse tender and a minesweeper, now sit alongside the Aurora, fueling concern that the channel is becoming a graveyard for ghost ships.
Willson works with a volunteer crew of retired sailors, amateur historians and interested locals. They spent last fall and winter patching decks and rebuilding railings. Since the coronavirus shelterinplace directives took hold in spring, though, his workforce has thinned, and problems getting materials have held up certain tasks.
“As soon as I get all my help back, I’m going to shift into overdrive,” Willson said.
Money remains an issue. Willson draws an income from electrical work he does on other boats, and buys and sells things online after refurbishing them. But his cash flow won’t immediately cover the $ 4 million or so he said he needs to completely recondition the ship.
He talks about attracting investment, but so far has collected only donated supplies. The highlight may be a rare collection of midcentury “modern chic” cruiseship furniture. He also acquired, on the cheap, 400 rolls of Italian silk wallpaper and hundreds of square yards of Caesars Palace casino carpet tile.
“You have no idea how far this boat has come along,” said David Jon Foster, an artist in Lodi who is among those helping restore the craft, where he has held art shows and even filmed a Cold Warera spy movie.
When the ship is ready to move, one big issue remains. Little Potato Slough has gotten shallower since the Aurora arrived, apparently due to sediment washing into the waterway during recent wet winters.
The result: The channel is no longer deep enough for the Aurora to get out.
“We’ll do what we have to do. Rain or shine, or whatever else happens, I’m moving forward,” Willson said. “How are you going to tell this boat no?”
Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@ sfchronicle. com Twitter: @ kurtisalexander