A Cool Wind Off the Ocean and River Otters On Paddy’s Rock

Thursday January 5, 2017 Guerneville CA.

River’s up and muddy from the recent rains

I was on the water at Jenner this morning around noon. The sun was out and it was a bit windy. There was a lot of current from the recent rains, so I headed on up on this side intending to cross to Penny Island when I got far enough above it to cross over in the current, knowing I’d drift down river a bit before hitting the island.\

What’s that guy doing

As I was paddling along, I saw a guy up ahead in a kayak doing something.

It turned out to be Ken. He’d found this paddle type boat up the river a ways stuck on a big rock. He said he had a heck of a time getting it off the rock, but finally did so. He was headed to the boat ramp with it, mostly to keep it from going out into the ocean. I’d seen this boat up above Rein’s beach a couple days ago tied up, but upside down, which means someone untied it to let it go down the river to get rid of it.

I followed Ken back towards the boat ramp as he pushed the boat along in the current.

But he pulled in too soon above the ramp and couldn’t push it any further because of the wind and the back eddy he had gotten into. I advised him to stay in the current and pull in below the boat ramp and let the eddy take him back to the ramp, but he didn’t lesson. :O)

So he gave up and tied it off on Watertreks floating dock and left it there until conditions for moving it were more favorable.

Ken said he had a tire to pick up on the upper end of Penny Island so we paddled over there and he got the tire and tied it to his boat and left headed back to the boat ramp where he will leave the tire and the state people pick up the garbage left from the river when they come down to empty the trash cans in the parking lot.

Here’s Ken headed for the tire on the upper end of Penny Island.

I said see you later and headed on up the river taking my time and stopping here and there.

I stopped in this spot once the ducks paddled away.

Two scrub jays popped up just behind me and were digging around for things to eat. Here’s one of them.

I think I see something on Paddy’s rock

I continued on up the river and was stopped in this spot taking a break. I thought I saw something move on the upper side of Paddy’s rock which you can see across the river from me, but I couldn’t make out what it was and finally decided it must be some river otters getting some sun.

I wasn’t sure if what I saw was river otters or not, so I paddled across the river towards them and finally could see they were river otters alright.

Maneuvering to shoot the otters

At this point I knew if I got closer they might spook, so I tried a maneuver. I turned and paddled up the river a ways to get above the rock, then put my boat in a drift so‘s I could drift down by them without moving much with the camera up and ready to go. This is one time a rudder would be handy to keep the boat headed where I wanted as it tends to turn here and there. I have a rudder, but I took it off the boat as it’s mostly useless and I got tired of it hanging up in the gravel and on trees along the river’s edge.

Anyway, I’m set up for the drift headed down to the left side of Paddy’s rock there.

I’m getting closer and they see me and watch.

Otters tend to pile up when they nap or sleep. Nothing in their right minds would mess with them if they are smart.

I’m drifting on by. They watch me closely, but don’t want to leave their spot in the sun.

just past the otters, these two male merganser ducks were resting.

And a bit further down the shoreline, I passed by this pair of mallard ducks.

The wind was up a bit as I headed down along the north edge of Penny Island, thinking I would paddle down to the open river’s mouth.

Not going to the river’s mouth

But when I got to the lower end of Penny Island I stopped to watch for a bit. There was a cool wind coming off the ocean, so I decided the heck with that and crossed over the river to it’s north shoreline and headed back in. The wind was blowing pretty good and there were some fairly good sized waves to go through on the way back.

I paddled up along the shoreline to stay out of the wind and the current and am headed for the boat ramp just up ahead.

I saw John the trash picker upper picking up trash in the parking lot. He came over to shoot the bull as I was putting my boat on the car. He asked where the tire came from laying on the ramp. I told him about Ken getting it, so he said good and rolled it over to the trash bins.

I went on home for the day. It was sunny but cool when I got home so I went in the house to get something to eat and that was my day.

The bad guys

As far as the site hackers, I’ve been using software called Wordfence to block their networks and seem to be making progress as there are less of them coming to my site and trying to log in, so maybe eventually most of them will go away and go pick on someone else. :O)