Back Home and a Paddle Down at Jenner

Thursday August 27, 2015 Jenner CA.

Finishing up the trip

Just to catch up a bit on the trip. On the way to Winnemucca, my left side mirror started to fall off as the glue was letting loose from all the bouncing on the trip. I saw it flapping in the wind and was able to  reach out and grab it before it fell off. Some Duct tape fixed it up for now.

We went to the Napa parts place to see about a new clutch push rod and the guy said the part was obsolete, not surprising. My fix was holding, so I’ll weld the part up when I get home.

I went to McDonalds to post some blogs then I was going to go to a camp site for the night, but Steve decided he wanted to drive home in the dark, so I decided to go too to avoid the heat in the day. We made it home ok, but by the time I got home, I was rummy and could tell I was in for some jet lag stuff. I had messed up my body clocks and I was now going to suffer for it.

The next day, I was real rummy and had a headache and was too tired out to do much of anything. I felt like I had a hang over. I did get some stuff unloaded from the van.

I knew better than to mess up my body clocks and should of stayed the night and left for home in the morning.

Jenner to kayak

Today, I drove on down to Jenner for a yak. The sun was out and the wind was down as I arrived and put my boat in the water.

I decided to head on down to the river’s mouth passing these two harbor seals resting in the shallow water. They seem to like to rest in this position with their head and tail in the air.

River’s mouth area

I paddled on down to the mouth area which was wide open and looked like this.

Dead eels

I was sitting there and saw a seagull pecking on something which I knew was too big for it to swallow, so I went over to have a look. It was pecking on some sort of eel which had most of it’s skin peeled off. I saw another seagull doing the same thing and it too was eating on one of these eels. As I was watching the second eel, a bunch of seagulls attacked the first eel and were fighting over it.

Here’s one of the skinned eels the gulls were trying to eat.

Of a sudden a bunch of seagulls flew in and fought over the two dead eels and shortly they were gone.

It’s interesting that it’s high tide and the two dead eels must of just come into the river from the ocean at that very moment I went by. If I’d seen only one dead eel, no big thing, but two dead eels, means there are likely many more dead eels out in the ocean that have died for some reason.

It’s also interesting that these particular eels look a lot like the eels the Japanese eat a lot and are on their endangered species list. From watching one of their documentaries, I know these eels go thousands of miles out to sea to spawn and then return to Japan.

Haystack rock

I went on down to the end of the river past these birds and settled by that big rock there they call haystack rock.

I was sitting resting and watching these birds in front of me. Some brown pelicans and some cormorants.

I sat in the mouth area for an hour or so, then headed on up the river through the island back channel. I passed by this osprey sitting on a real big old redwood stump.

My young turkey vulture

As I as just clearing the channel a turkey vulture glided in toward me and paused just over my head about ten feet up and then went to shore close by me. At the time I was watching some geese in the water and they swam over by the vulture. Looking close at the vulture, it looks like the young one from the nest I was watching this summer as it’s head is still black indicating a young bird. I as surprised how close it came to me and the geese stayed close by too. Almost like a welcome back.

Here’s the young bird with one of the geese.

The vulture was getting a drink and some more of the geese swam on by close as it drank.

This all happened about twenty feet from me and none of the birds seem to fear me.

I paddled on up the river to the Muskrat area and sat for a bit, then turned and started back down the river.

I went by this egret resting on these tree roots.

And there was a loon in the water as I paddled by.

Town of Jenner

It was a real nice day and this was my view as I headed on back to the town of Jenner.

I could see some crows eating something on the shore, but couldn’t make out what.

Just as I was about to leave the island and cross over to the boat ramp, this egret landed about ten feet from me and started to fish, not paying me any attention, just the way I like it.

I watched the egret fish for awhile then headed on in for the day and went on home.

At home I puttered in the yard. I was surprised to find some of my grapes ripe and still on the vine and not eaten by the animals and birds while I was gone. I think I ate most of the grapes that were left. I also noted my peaches were getting ripe, but I was too full of grapes to eat any.

That was pretty much my day for a nice one.