Sunday November 17, 2013 Jenner CA.
What’s the sea lion doing with that?
I did enough work on my van yesterday to warrant a day off. Not that I really needed an excuse to take it easy.
I was down at Jenner around eleven and went down to look at the river’s mouth from the overlook on the road. It was high tide and it was flowing into the river so the mouth is not closed. From there, I went back to Jenner and put my boat in the water and parked the car.
I paddled over to Penny Island and sat for a bit, then went to the east end channel of the island and sat around that area for a bit.
This is the view out the Penny Island east end channel as I sat there taking it easy.
Looking out the south end of the channel there were still a bunch of coots eating weeds and grasses under water. I’d say there are over six hundred of them here now in this spot.
Some of the coots in some kind of star shower? 
From there I paddled across to the south side of the river and worked my way up stopping at Otter’s log for a bit and then Eagle’s landing for a bit. Then I went up the river almost to the bridge on highway one, before turning around and starting my way back.
I went over to Paddy’s rock where I thought I saw some loons, so I checked it out and and here is a picture of one of them.
From there, I continued on down the river, back along the south side. Just below Otter’s log, I spied this duck sitting on a log. Now, usually these types of ducks down here take off, but this one sat and stayed while I went by fairly close to it.
Here’s a picture of the duck as I went on by.
I continued on down to the west end of Penny Island where I stopped for a bit to check things out. There were some harbor seals in the water and a lot of seagulls were on the water and in the air and on the beach too today. This photo is looking down toward the river’s mouth area, where I’m headed.
I passed by these three little diving birds, some kind of grebes.
As I approached the river’s mouth, it looked closed, but it wasn’t. There is a small channel on the right side of the seals that is still flowing to the ocean, but you can’t see it in this picture.
I sat around there for quite awhile. John, a guy I know down there that picks up a lot of beach trash came by and we shot the bull for awhile. While we were talking, a sea lion swam by. They submerge, then pop up for air and submerge again while swimming along, usually at a fairly fast pace, which make it hard to get good photos of them. This one was swimming back and forth in front of me, mostly under water and I tried to get some photos of it. I didn’t see it at the time,, but this one had a big bunch of grass or moss or something it was swimming around with. I did notice harbor seals around it sometimes, so I’m not sure if it was eating this stuff or just playing with it? But I did watch it swimming around for about ten minutes and it must have had this stuff the whole time?
The green stuff is easy to see in this photo.
I think the sea lion has a big bunch of moss? Notice sea lions have ear flaps and long whiskers. Harbor seals don’t have ear flaps and not nearly the whiskers.
I got tired of watching the sea lion after awhile so headed back toward the launch ramp.
Here is the view as I headed back up the river, taken from the river’s mouth area.
I passed a lone white pelican on the way in.
Just as I approached the launch ramp at the visitor center, I turned and took a last picture of the sun and clouds, about an hour before sunset.
A nice relaxing day kayaking Jenner.