Monday, July 8, 2013 Jenner, CA.
The tooth part
I had a root cannel appointment just after two today, so I went to Santa Rosa early to do some shopping. A bridge the family owns is falling apart, the wood is rotting, so I needed to get an estimate on some steel to replace it. Only problem was the steel shop moved and I had to hunt it up, but I finally found it and gave them the details so they can figure something out as far as what we need and what it would cost and let me know.
The root cannel went ok, the guy really knows his stuff. He had to re-drill out all four cannels on the tooth, because somehow infection has set in on one of the root ends after three years. The infection is pretty bad, he says, so we are treating it with antibiotics and then I’ll go back and see by x ray if the infection is healed. If so, he seals things up and my dentist puts another crown on it. Lets see, about three thousand for all this the first time and now, to redo it, about another three thousand dollars. I guess it’s just good they can do this stuff. If I was to not take care of the infection, it could eventually eat though to my brain, which likely wouldn’t be too fun, eh? :O)
The crook part
I’m mostly a fairly healthy guy, so I haven’t bought any meds at a store for a long time and I expected to pay a lot for the pain pills and antibiotics. I had them phone to the local Safeway.
When I went to pay, the guy said 2,2,2 and some change. I forked over 222 dollars and some change. He looked at me funny and I noticed I needed two more dollars, so I gave it to him. I think he was going to be honest, but I gave him an excuse to not be, I thought later.
He rings me up and I go home and I’m checking out the med stuff.
I note that the receipt for my meds says 22 and some change, not 222 and some change. Yikes.
I’m headed to kayak at Jenner anyway, so I stop in at Safeway and ask to talk with a manager to report that someone has made a mistake. They decide to do an audit on the guys cash drawer and the report is, it is not over two hundred bucks. Only thing that means is the guy pocketed the money. She asked if I wanted to do anything else about it?
Not much I could do. I didn’t think it would be worth having the guy searched. Or they could find my finger prints on the four fifty’s I paid him with, which he likely had on him?
I didn’t think it was worth confronting him, I would only get a denial. It seemed like a lot of hassle, so I dropped it and said they should keep and eye on that guy.
The kayak part
Off to better things, headed for Jenner to Kayak. As I approached Jenner, I could see the fog was coming in, it turned a bit on the damp side and the air conditioner was on. Gee, a lot like winter, but that’s the ocean. At least I’m not burning up.
It’s about six PM, no one in the parking lot and no one else out on the water. I put my boat in and headed across to Penny Island and down to it’s west end, where there are a bunch of birds on the shore.
While heading to the west end of the island I spied a great blue heron fishing in the water weeds for fish. This one has just caught a fish and is just about ready to swallow it.
It swallowed that fish, then jumped in the air and did it’s dinosaur type aaaaakKK, aaaaakKK a few times telling me it wasn’t pleased with me bugging it when it was trying to feed. Here it is just as it jumped into the air, squawking away.
I saw Ken and his wife working on something over at there house, so I veered over there and shot the bull with them for a bit before continuing on.
As I was saying there were a lot of birds on the west end of Penny island. White pelicans and seagulls and some terns on the ground and these brown pelicans, in the air, flew in but didn’t stay and flew off.
I checked these birds out a bit, the breeze was blowing me toward them, but I didn’t want to drift too close to spook them into the air. These white guys seemed a little on the dirty side, but maybe their plumage has a little brown in it for where ever they hang out.
White pelicans hang out in fresh water, as opposed to the brown pelicans that do the salt water. So far, the only time I’ve seen white pelicans feeding in Jenner, they where eating some type of long moss they would pull up off the bottom. I’ve never seen them eat any fish or anything else, so far. They mostly come in to roost.
From there I headed down toward the river’s mouth, but saw John at his house so detoured over there to shot the bull with him for awhile. He’s an x fire man for up on the coast, so the big plane crash was real exciting to him, fire fighting wise, so that’s what we mostly talked about.
Then off to the river’s mouth I went, which is just in front of his house. I like to sit in the foam right in front of the rivers mouth, as the fact that the foam is here and not being blown away, means my boat with me in it, will stay put while in the foam, instead of drifting away in the current and wind.
This is the foam just inside the river’s mouth, with me looking out the mouth to the Pacific ocean. The ocean is fairly calm today for a change.
When most people see this foam, they just think, oh foam, wonder where that came from? And it’s more like, ugh, dirty old foam, nasty stuff, pollution, who’s causing the polluting?
But to me, this foam means a lot more. To start with, the fact that it is there, means the tide is coming in, which also means I’m safe in my boat right now as the ocean water is coming in and not going out and sucking me with it.
But it also means something else, that most people would not think of. It means the fifty two degree F. salty ocean water is diving under that seventyish F. fresh river water, right at this point. The foam comes on off the ocean, a lot of it made from crashing up on rocks. But since the foam is light, it can’t sink with the colder, heavier with salt, ocean water and therefore, floats at the spot where the salt water dives under the fresh water. This forms two layers of water in the estuary. Warm fresh river water on top and and a cold salty ocean water at the bottom.
This means that if one has a six foot high tide, salt water will slide up under the fresh river water all the way up to the six foot elevation point in the rivers bed, which goes quite a ways up the river.
This also means that where this happens, the ocean salt water flows up underneath the fresh river water, not pushing the river water back up the river, but just up, as in straight up.
In other words, the ocean water flows up the river under the fresh river water, just lifting the river water straight up above the rising salt water. The ocean water doesn’t just push the river water back up the river, but the ocean water slides under the river water, causing the whole river to rise, without much surface current, as the only flowing water is the ocean water down deep. This was all a surprise to me when I learned and saw how this all works.
I’ve seen this foam layer move up and down the river, from the mouth to just above the visitor center launch ramp, at different times. If the ocean water comes in fast enough, it pushes this foam point up the river.
See the foam line, ripples on the left, ocean water going down under the calmer river water on the right side of the foam. You can put your finger in the water on each side of the foam. Cold salty ocean on the left side and warm fresh water on the right side. How to test for salt. Put finger in water and put finger in mouth. 
There were three groups of seals beached today. This one in the river’s mouth.
And this one just south of the mouth and one more to the north of the mouth, no pic.
I hung around down at the mouth for about an hour, then headed back up the river. There were several great blue herons out fishing along the shore tonight.
This one caught my attention. They were doing a good job fishing too.
This one just got a fish. They catch a lot of small fish like this one.
As I headed back the fog came in a little more and it was just before dark. This picture shows the visitor’s center and launch ramp, where I’m headed to take my boat out of the water, shortly.
This one is from just in front of the visitor’s center looking across the river to the east end of Penny Island. See the fog moving in?
I was off the water and headed home just before dark.
Let’s see, the tooth, seems ok, the crook, I learned a lesson and all in all I had a nice day.
