Friday July 18, 2014 Jenner CA.
It looked like a nice day to paddle Jenner
It was sunny and the wind was down to just a breeze when I put my boat in at Jenner today. There were quite a few other kayakers putting in this morning. Most of them went down towards the mouth area and I headed on up the river. I couldn’t see any white pelicans up the river, but I was thinking all the kayaks going down towards the mouth area would likely spook them off the west end of Penny Island, if there were down there.
Fishing pelicans
Sure enough, soon a big flock of them flew over my head headed up the river. But they veered off and landed to the right, not too far from me. They were sitting in the water fishing.
The white pelicans landed here and started fishing.
The pelicans were swimming around chasing fish. These mallard ducks got in the middle of it and weren’t too happy about it. They stood up and flapped their wings several times to move the pelicans back from them.
This one is just coming in to join the rest in the fishing. They’d dip their big bills and heads under the water to catch fish. They then tip their bills into the air to slide the fish down the hatch.
After awhile they flew up the river to just below Paddy’s rock were they went to shore and took a break on the gravel.
Diving tern
I passed on by Paddy’s rock and there was a big splash in the water and this is what it looked like. A tern dove for a fish out of the sky. You can just barely see it under the water, just before it took to the air again, empty beaked, no fish this time.
I needed a little hike
I continued up the river and crossed over to rat nest beach were I sat for awhile, taking it easy. As I was sitting there, I was thinking of taking a hike up to the old Indian lady’s face rock, which can be seen up on the ridge top from where I was sitting at this spot.
Lookout point instead
I was considering walking up to the big rock, but finally decided to go past that trail and hike up to lookout point instead. That trail takes off here at eagle’s landing, where I pulled my boat up on the shore and tied it up for the hike up the hill.
The trail up there is real lush and scenic and also full of poison oak, which I don’t catch. Lookout point is up on the ridge above this spot.
Lookout point
I made it up to lookout point. The sun was out and it was hot and I needed some shade. I took this picture of the town of Jenner from lookout point.
And this one a little closer shot of the town of Jenner with Penny Island in the foreground.
And looking back up the river from the spot, this is what it looked like, looking up to the highway one bridge.
It was hot in the sun, so I walked up a little further, which was good as the trail went under some trees, so I stopped and cooled down a bit.
This is the view from this spot of the Pacific ocean looking south towards Bodega Bay headlands.
I was pretty beat from walking up the trail in the heat, so I had a little nap under the trees, before starting back down the trail.
Returning to the river, I found my boat where I tied it up, which is always nice.
I got back in my boat and headed down river. I was still tired out, so I pulled into the first resting spot and napped some more, until I was rested.
I was thinking I’ll head on down to the west end of Penny Island and headed off that way.
I passed these merganser ducks resting on a log near the east end of Penny Island.
Headed for the west end of Penny Island
I was feeling real tired, so wasn’t’ sure I wanted to go down to the west end of Penny Island, but I kept going at a real slow pace.
This egret was fishing in the reeds as I went by and being real successful too. The fish it was catching were real small, about an inch, but it was catching a lot of them.
I made it to the west end of Penny Island were some white pelicans were resting in the water.
That was far enough for the day. I slowly worked my way back to the boat ramp and pulled my boat out of the water and went on home..
At home, I put the water on the garden and went on in for another nap. I seemed to be real tired out today for some reason, so took it easy for the rest of the day.
Nice day and I got a lot of exercise too.
