Tuesday November 18, 2014 Jenner CA.
A chance for the harbor seals to get some big fish
Steve followed me into Jenner this morning. The wind was up, so Steve decided to go back to Monte Rio to kayak. A little wind doesn’t bother me much so I put my boat in the water. I could see Ray and John in their kayaks heading down towards the just opened river’s mouth, so I headed on down that way too.
I caught up with them just as they approached the mouth area in this spot. This is looking out the river’s mouth into the Pacific ocean.
There were a bunch of harbor seals resting on the sand just inside the mouth.
Ray and John paddled past these seals and went over to the end of the river where they went to shore while I stayed in my boat.
Harbor seals resting on the sand in front of us.
The harbor seals have a big fish
I was sitting there watching when all of a sudden the seals made a big commotion. I saw a big tail of a big salmon twice, but they wouldn’t show the big fish. I took lots of photos, but his was all I could get of the action.
Ray, who was on the shore saw it once. He said it looked like a big salmon about thirty five pounds or so. The seals were fighting over it. We stayed at the mouth area for an hour or so, then headed on up to the east end of Penny Island were we were going to go to shore for a walk on the island.
When the river’s mouth gets opened up, it lets the big fish that need to get into the river to spawn come into the river from the ocean where they have been waiting. Sometimes lots of fish are out there to come in, which makes for a good time for the harbor seals and the sea lions.
Going for a little walk
But as we approached the island’s landing area, I suggested we go up the river a little further to Swamp rock trailhead and go for a walk up the river on the Poison Oak Alley trail, which we did.
We put ashore here and found the trail that leads on up the river to Eagle’s Landing, about a half mile or so.
Horsetails
On the way, we went by these Horsetail grasses, which were quite colorful. There was a lot of poison oak mixed in with the stuff too. Ray’s checking it out.
A little snake surprises me
We made it up to Telescope landing. There was a big tree across the trail. We stopped to move it, so I had to set my camera down. I moved a big green fern to put the camera in a safe spot so we could move the tree and this little garter snake was there which gave me a little surprise.
We moved the tree out of the way and continued on up the trail. I got ahead a bit and was waiting here for the guys to catch up, looking back down the river to the little town of Jenner.
We made it up to Eagle’s landing at this spot were we had a nice break before heading back down the trail.
This was our view as we headed back down the trail to our boats which are down there as far as you can see on the river, by Penny Island.
That’s a nice easy little walk that takes one through lots of little micro climates along the way.
Highway one overlook
The wind was decreasing as we put our boats back in the water. We headed on in for the day. John said he was going down to the highway one overlook of the mouth area, so I decided to go down there too, to get an overview picture of the opened river’s mouth.
There’s usually someone we know viewing the mouth area, so we shot the bull with them for a bit. I saw one of the seal biologist ladies there so I went over to say hi and chat with her a bit.
This was our view of the opened river mouth from the overlook, where we were kayaking earlier in the day in the river,………. not the ocean.
John’s a fisherman. He saw some fishermen he knew and went over to shoot the bull with them as I left and went on home for the day.
I went on home for a much needed nap and that was my day.