Dave,
We left to move to Texas in 1980, but yes Boulder was a pain in summertime. We had a 25' Ericson named Puff, at the time, and literally had to drag the boat through the channel on more than one occasion, and that was a centerboard version. The motor boaters were great about going out and "dredging" the channel for us sailors.... we couldn't have sailed part of the summer without them... surprised to see that it is still a problem 20 years later....
I did like the marina, and the islands being so close. It made it great when the parents went out in the 25', and us teenagers could take the daysailer out to the islands and catch up with our friends.....
4th of July was always great... we had some major bottlerocket wars, 2 teams, each take an island and go at it...... can see why they were banned after seeing around 25 gross of bottlerockets worth of sticks floating around the next day...... but we were kids then.....