Friday May 16, 2104 Noyo River, Fort Bragg CA.
First some more work on the cabin
The first thing we did this morning was finish off the work on Marty’s cabin roof. He got up on the cabin roof and did the repair while I supervised again from my chair. This combination works real good for getting things done. :O)
Off to do some kayaking in Fort Bragg
At noon, I left and headed for Fort Bragg, where I went to McDonald’s to post my blog, then I went on over to the South Harbor boat ramp that is up the river about a quarter mile from the South Boulevard road ramp. There is a small fee for parking in this lot.
It works like this. They come around several times a day and put parking envelopes on your car. If you find one, you put three dollars in the envelope and deposit it in one of the pipes near the main entrance. A car with a boat trailer is ten dollars, but just a car with a kayak is three bucks. Sometimes they don’t put an envelope on the car and that makes it even less.
The Noyo Harbor
I put my boat in the water around four PM and headed down towards the Noyo harbor towards the ocean.
This was my view looking at the Noyo river from the parking lot, looking up the river.
The Noyo harbor is a working harbor and sometimes there is a lot of action in the harbor when they are catching things, unloading and resupplying the boats, but today wasn’t one of them. Things were mostly on the quiet side except for all the small boats coming back in for the day that were fishing just outside the river in the ocean. Most of those boats return around four or five PM and there were lots of them.
This was my view as I entered the main harbor area headed down the river.
Just looing around
I continued on through the harbor taking my time and looking around.
Lots of fishing boats just waiting for some action to start out in the ocean.
The Pacific Ocean
I paddled on past the main harbor and up to the 101 highway bridge before I stopped.
This was my view looking out the harbor entrance under the 101 bridge. The ocean was calm at this time. Only a fool would go out there in a kayak without a wet or dry suit and I had neither, nor am I interested in doing that anyway.
I took a break at that spot for quite awhile then turned and started back up the river going through the harbor again.
Some fishing boats are new and some are older, like this one, loaded with crab pots.
Headed on up the river
I was hoping for more action going on in the harbor today, but it seems fishing has been slow lately, so I headed up the river, leaving the main harbor area, going up past the boat ramp where I launched.
I passed these older fishing boats that looked like they needed a lot of repair and no one with enough bucks to do them?
The osprey
As I went, I heard an osprey screeching way up in a tree bragging about the little fish it just caught and was going to consume.
And a swan too
And just past that, a swan was sitting in the green grasses on the opposite shore, checking me out as I went by.
This is my view as I paddled on up the river. I went up only a little ways past that old logging haul road bridge before turning around and heading back down the river. One can kayak the river a bit further up the river past this bridge to the next rail road bridge, maybe about two miles above the launch ramp?
It was getting closer to sun down as I paddled back down the river. Some geese started honking loudly as I passed too close. This one was up on a old log as I passed.
Winking harbor seal
There were some harbor seals doing something in the water near the launch ramp. As I passed, this one winked at me. :O)
I stayed out almost until dark, before calling it a day and taking my boat out of the water
Almost dark now
This was the last picture I took today, looking down towards the main harbor from the launch ramp I was heading to, which is just out of sight to the left.
It was getting dark as I loaded my kayak on my van. I drove down to Little River where I parked for the night pulled off on a little side road in a turn out. It’s not too bad, but it is a little on the sloped side, so I’ll see how that works out tonight while trying to sleep? :O)
Had a nice day playing around in this area.
