Monday January 18, 2016 Jenner CA.
An overcast no rain day
It was overcast as I drove into Jenner this morning. I saw a John’s truck in the parking lot, but never did catch up with him.
I put the boat in the water, parked the car and jumped into my boat and paddled across the river to Penny Island. The tide was going out some and with the recent rains, the current in the river was fairly strong, but without the wind, it was real nice.
I headed down river towards the mouth area with no wind.
There were quite a few ducks on the water. They appeared to be floating around a diving for their eats.
Most of the ducks were golden eyes, but there were some buffle heads out there too. A few golden eyes.
I saw John who lives down there over by his house, so I went over and shot the bull with him for a bit.
Checking out the open mouth
I paddled over near the open mouth, but not too close as the river was flowing into the ocean with a bit of current and there was some floating down from the recent rains.
This is looking out the open mouth into the Pacific ocean. The ocean water is muddy from all the mud flowing down the river.
The current was too strong to hang around the mouth area for very long, so I headed back up the river which looked like this as I paddled back up. You can see the river water is fairly muddy.
Vulture eating a bone
I was cruising along the north shore of Penny Island when I spied this turkey vulture eating something. It was eating this vertebrate from a deer or a seal. It picked it up as I watched to make sure I didn’t get it. There didn’t look like any meat on it, but it sure was protecting it. This vulture has the bone in his beak.
I left it pecking at the bone and continued up the river. The tide was going out, so the river current was picking up some too. I paddled up on the river’s edge as it’s easier to paddle where there isn’t much current compared to the middle of the river where the current is the strongest.
I made it up to this spot and stopped just in back of this rock, checking the current out.
Break time
I could see the current was fairly strong here and there was no need to continue up the river any further then this, so I turned around and pulled into Eagle’s landing to take a break at this spot.
After awhile I started back down the river going by here towards the town of Jenner down there as far as you can see.
I ran into this great blue heron on the upper end of Penny island. It was fishing away, catching some real tiny little fish about an inch long.
I didn’t really want to head in yet so I pulled into the little channel on the upper end of Penny Island and sat here for a spell.
Eventually I headed on over to the boat ramp and pulled my boat out of the water.
Headed down to the overlook
Instead of going home, I drove on down to the river’s mouth overlook to have a look.
This was my view from the overlook just north of the town of Jenner.You can see the river’s mouth is wide open and the ocean is rough.
There were several hundred harbor seals resting down there on the beach. Here’s some of them resting on the sand.
Found my gate broken
From there I headed on home. As I was pulling into my driveway, I noticed my electric gate was not closed as it should be. I got out to inspect it and found that someone had forced it and broken the actuator mechanism and broke two three eights inch bolts off.
I got the tools out and had to drill two new holes and tap them as all the threads were gone in the original holes. I got it back together and then just had to set it’s stops for opening and closing. After fussing with that for a bit, I got it all adjusted properly.
By this time it was starting to sprinkle a bit, so I went on in the house and that was my day.
Hi Roxanne,
It sounds like the seals are pupping early this year. I’d heard a report of a still born just over a week ago.
Thanks,
Bob
Fantastic! Thanks so much, Bob. I was exploring out there last week, on foot. When I was at the mouth, came upon a woman who is a steward, one of the folks that protects the seals. She was very surprised they were so far up the river that day, much less here all ready, AND, two pups. My granddaughter and I had spied them first and pointed them out to her….she was so excited she left the beach to call the way an that coordinates the seal watch!