Wednesday December 11, 2013 Jenner CA.
It was still too cold today to put the new exhaust manifold on my van, so off I went to Jenner to kayak for the day.
It was a bit crisp down there with a light breeze and the sun was shinning. It was going to low tide, so the water level was low, exposing lots of muddy shorelines.
I paddled across the river to Penny Island thinking it was a bit cool and was hoping the sun will warm it up in a bit.
I headed up the river working my way along the south bank looking for places to stop in the sun to sit and check things out.
I worked my way along this shoreline stopping often along the way.
I spied this bird moving up into the brush. I’ve been seeing some of these birds along the shoreline lately. They appear to be some kind of Dowitcher from my bird book.
I worked my way almost to the bride on Highway 1, until the sun started going behind the hill on my south side. That got me moving back down the river to stay in the warm spots. The air temperature had warmed up a bit by now, but staying in the sun was still a good idea.
As I was paddling back down the river I noticed a green plastic chair in the water that I recognized from ones that were at the visitor’s center in Jenner. I guess someone had thrown it in the river and the wind blew it up here. I was thinking it might be a good chair to sit in on the shoreline somewhere, so I went to shore at Otter’s log and hiked back up the trail to get it.
Here is where I went to shore to walk the trail to get the chair.
The chair was right by a little fir tree, so I retrieved it from the river and installed it under that tree. I sat in it for awhile, only problem was it wasn’t in the sun so I didn’t stay too long.
The newly found chair installed under the little fir tree, where I sat for awhile today.
I found myself walking up and down the trail as it was in the sun. I stopped along the shore and watched the river from shore for a couple hours, before the sun dropped some more and I had to get back in my boat to head down river to get back in the sun.
Another spot I stopped to check out what’s going on in the river, not a whole lot that I could see, but there were a bunch of different types of ducks out there feeding.
I was back in my boat and headed down the back channel of Penny Island, but when I looked at my marker that tells me if the water is high enough to pass down that side, I noted that the tide was too low, so turned and headed down the main channel on the north side.
This is my view as I started down the main channel. Noticed the turkey vultures on the island shore?
I went over to investigate what the vultures might be eating and found they were working on a big fish head of some type. Shows the big fish are still coming up the river. I couldn’t tell what kind.
I continued on down to the west end of Penny Island and was heading towards the river’s mouth. As I approached the biologists buoy, they came up in their motor boat to pick up it’s data.
Here they are grabbing the buoy to retrieve the data recorded there.
I said hi, but didn’t stay long as I talked with these guys a couple days ago. I continued on down towards the river’s mouth.
There were a lot of seagulls and seals on the shores around the mouth.
This is the view of the mouth area.
I was just starting to leave a it was getting colder as the sun was almost ready to go down, when I saw John, the trash picker upper down here approaching in his kayak. We shot the bull for a bit. He told me that yesterday several salmon where in the shallows at the end of the river just past the mouth outlet. They were swimming around while another guy was taking pictures of them, so salmon are still coming up the river.
We talked for awhile then I headed on in for the day.
