Monday March 30, 2015 Jenner CA.
Things looked pretty nice as I arrived at Jenner this morning. The sun was out and the wind was down for now. The river’s mouth was obviously closed as the estuary water level was high, about eight feet at the visitor center gage. I put my boat in the water and as I was walking back from parking my car I noticed a posting on the visitor center door, so I went over to read it.
River’s mouth
It said the river’s mouth would be breached tomorrow, Tuesday by the Sonoma County Water Agency.
I put my boat in the water and headed on across the river to Penny Island and decided to go on down to the river’s mouth area while the wind was still down.
As I neared the lower end of Penny island, I could see a bunch of seals and cormorants fishing in the water. There is also a lot of wood floating around on the water today from the estuary water being so high, which floats the wood off the river’s banks.
I was paddling along when some brown pelicans flew by fishing.
They would cruise around until they spotted a fish and then dive.
Big waves splashing
The ocean was rough today and putting on some good shows. It’s hard to beat mother nature when it comes to splashing water around. An ocean wave breaking over the end of the jetty rocks. Makes a bit of noise too.
I paddled on down to the end of the river and sat for awhile watching and taking it easy. This was what it looked like from where I was sitting in my boat, with some cormorants on the right.
Some cormorants, harbor seals and seagulls taking it easy.
I headed on back up deciding to go check out the flooded part of Penny Island. This pelican flew by and landed as I paddled.
Pride of Madera’s
I pulled into this little creek which was full of wood and sat for a bit. While sitting there, I noticed this nice looking flower to the left.
Since the water was high, I could get close to the flower so I took a close up of it.
It’s called a Pride of Madera, a nice looking flower. They are just starting to bloom down here.
Flooded Penny Island
From there I crossed over to Penny Island and was paddling onto the flooded Island when I ran into this little hawkish type bird eating something. The wind was picking up and blowing me around as I tired to get a picture of it.
I checked out the flooded island and then decided to head up the river to the bridge at highway one. The wind was picking up, but it was blowing up that way, so I rode it a bit.
Wild pigs
As I went by the area where I had been seeing the wild pigs, I looked hard for them on the hillside and yes, I did see some spots moving so I zeroed in. It turned out to be the two big mama’s with all the little piglets. They were grazing on the grass on the hillside.
I continued paddling on up towards the bridge as the wind picked up some more. These geese were sitting on the grass by the bridge.
The wind was up now
I crossed over the river to the other side and paddled against the wind back down along the edges trying to stay out of the wind as much as possible.
With the wind up, it seemed like a good time to go in for the day, so I did. I took my boat off the water and at the last minute decided to drive on down to the river’s mouth area overlook, just above Jenner.
Talking with the seal biologist lady
One of the seal biologist ladies was there watching the seals. She says, don’t talk for a minute, I need to count the seals and she looks in her big scope. Just for fun I do a rough count using groups of tens. When she finishes her count, I say I counted about 160 seals, how close was I? She says she counted 166 seals, so not bad for my estimate count.
I talk with a couple more people down there and take some pictures.
Here’s the close sand bar at the river’s mouth looking northwest.
And south of that, the beach looks like this with Goat Rock there in the middle.
I left and went on home for a much needed nap and that was my day.
