A Windy Paddle with Steve and They Are Fixing the Post Office Water Problem

Thursday June 9, 2016 Jenner CA.

Let’s get the springs on the way

The first thing I did this morning was call the Spring Works and pay for my new springs so they’d order them and we could get the job done. They are supposed to be in in 5 to 7 working days and then we can get them mounted.

What’s going on here

I was driving down to Jenner this morning when I ran into this by the Sheridan Ranch so I pulled over to check it out. The rig seems to be what I think they call a yarder or a drag line which is usually used up in the hills to drag logs up the hill with cables for logging. Maybe they are going to log the Sheridan ranch. When I returned later in the day, only the trailers and trucks were parked there.

Steve’s concerned about the wind

I continued on to Jenner where I found Steve in the parking lot with his kayak. The wind was up and he was a bit concerned about that. We put our boats in the water and paddled across to Penny Island. The mouth is wide open and the tide was out, so there was lots of moss showing on the shoreline as we passed these geese.

Blanket moss

We paddled up the river and pulled into the redwood log graveyard where this interesting moss was piled up on one of the logs. The moss grew on the surface of the water when the mouth was closed, so when the mouth opened up and the water went down, it settled on this log. The interesting part of it is this stuff is now like a blanket and could likely be used as one or a cover for a tent or something in the old days. It’s light when dry, and fairly tough too.

By the way, people are really weird about moss and think it’s icky and bad stuff, but in truth it’s just another plant that grows in the water when conditions are right and isn’t bad stuff at all. If it didn’t grow, I’d say something is wrong and the water is polluted.

As I was sitting there I noticed these little fish swimming up around my kayak.

We continued on up the river to the muskrat area where the wind was less and stopped by this rock for a break looking down the river.

Eventually we paddled on over to Paddy’s rock and then back across the river where we ran into this momma merganser duck with her little ones.

A little walk looking for berries to eat

Steve wanted to go to the island for a little walk, but I didn’t think we could get to shore easily there with the tide out like it was so I talked him into going to shore at Swamp Rock trailhead as I knew if he stayed in this one place he’d stay out of the poison oak as he catches the stuff. I looked around for berries and had my fill of these little black berries.

After filling up on berries we put back in and paddled down the island back channel headed towards the river’s mouth area.

As we approached the lower end of Penny Island these white pelicans flew over. These white pelicans like to eat moss so they may be here for that as there’s lots of it around right now.

The river’s  mouth is wide open and deep

As we approached the open mouth, the tide was turning to high and lots of ocean water was rushing into the river. I pulled up behind this rock to get out of some of the current and watched for a bit, looking out the open river’s mouth.

Water layering is prevented

When the mouth is open like this wide and especially deep, the tides can come in and go out fast which tends to break up the water layering that usually occurs down here as was the case today. In other words the water can come in and go out fast enough to mix up the water which breaks up the layering of the fresh and ocean waters. As the mouth bottom fills up with sand becoming shallower, the water is slowed down and layering occurs again and the water doesn’t get mixed.

Lots of harbor seals were resting on the sand in the open mouth, looking out to the ocean.\

With all that water coming into the river it was hard to stay in the mouth area and eventually we let the current and the wind carry us back up the river.

There were some birds on the end of Penny Island as we paddled by. A couple of terns.

Some geese who got pretty concerned as we approached, but didn’t fly off.

And just past them, I spotted these turkey vultures eating something, but I couldn’t tell what.

The wind pretty much blew us back to the boat ramp where we took our boats out of the water.

Draining the post office pad

When I went to get my car to load my boat, I noticed some construction was going on by the post office so I went over to see what they were doing. The cement pad at the post office floods with rain water every time it rains, since they installed the pad, a number of years ago and it’s hard to get into the post office without wading through the water so they were installing a drainage ditch so the water won’t back up on the pad anymore.

Sawed up some redwood branches

I went on home for a nap. Later I got the chain saw out and cut up some redwood limbs that fell off the big redwood tree last winter.

Figuring out the new van shelves

Then I worked on figuring out how to install the new shelves in the back of my van.
The shelves mostly have to hold my gallon water jugs that I carry. Lucky me, I screwed all the original shelves together I just removed with screws so I could take them apart and use the same cut  materials to make what I need for the new ones without too much fuss. I laid it out, but didn’t finish it off yet as it’s better to think on this kind of stuff before doing the final work.

That was my day for another nice one.