First off today, I needed to get an new DSL modem to replace the one that failed yesterday. I had planned to go to a Sebastopol Radio Shack, but on the way there, I had to detour around Forestville for a parade, which put me in a different direction, so I headed for a different Radio Shack in Santa Rosa. That Radio Shank said no, they don’t carry modems. Ugh.
So, I was near my friend Marty’s and decided to pay him a visit and then go to Best Buy to get a new modem. But on the way to Marty’s house, I remembered he had a modem he no longer used, so I’d ask him for it.
Marty was home and we had a good visit and he had a modem that would do the trick, so I didn’t need to go buy one.
Headed to Jenner
After our visit, I headed on home where I got something to eat, then headed on down to Jenner to kayak.
As I passed through Monte Rio, I looked over to see if the road to the boat ramp was open or closed and I was glad to see it was open.
As I was driving into Jenner, I could see Steve across the river in his blue kayak, so I put my boat in the water and went across the river to join him.
It was overcast and foggy, with the wind down as we slowly made our way up the river.
We went by this loon which I’ve been seeing daily and has been getting braver each day, so I’ve been able to get better pictures of it.
To Willow Creek
When we got up to the highway one bridge, I asked Steve if he was up to going a little further up to Willow creek and he was, so we passed under the bridge and continued up the river.
If you didn’t know where Willow Creek was, you’d likely not see it’s entrance point, but knowing where it was, we headed right into it here.
It’s a very scenic lush area and very peaceful too. Here’s what the creek looks like almost to the point of as far as we can paddle into it.
We saw some movement under the branches hanging over the water which turned out to be this mommy duck with her little ones doing their best to stay out of our sight.
We sat back in the creek for quite a spell taking it easy. When we started to leave, we could see the wind was really up just outside the creek area.
We pulled in under this bridge to get out of the wind for a bit.
We noticed these swallow nests up under the bridge. They are built out of mud.
This mallard duck and her little one popped out just in front of me just as we left Willow Creek.
Once we got back out on the river the wind wasn’t as bad as we worked our way back down the river along the south side.
We stopped for a good break at Dead Deer Gulch, here. It was late in the day, around seven PM I believe.
Fish tracking biologists
We watched as these biologists motored by heading home for the day. That’s the fish tracker boat. The batteries in the fish tags only last ten to fifteen days, so once they plant the tags in some fish, they are committed to tracking them until the batteries are dead.
Jumping deer
About 7:30PM we were in the little channel at the upper end of Penny Island when we saw these three deer that had been grazing in the grasses out in the open. A momma and her two babies. They saw us and everything was ok for awhile, but then something spooked them and they needed to get back to the main part of Penny Island which is on the left.
So they splashed right into the water. You can see the two little guys in the water with mom not far behind.
Sunset
With all the overcast, I didn’t expect any sunset. But as we crossed the river to the boat ramp, the sun poked though just a bit and this is what it looked like, just before eight PM looking down towards the Pacific ocean.
We hit the boat ramp and headed on home for the day.
Monte Rio Boat ramp
As I was driving though Monte Rio I decided to check to see if the boat ramp was open or closed. I was surprised to find the road blocked at the entrance with metal gates and a guard. Hummmmmmmmmmm. Linda from the parks and recreation said it wouldn’t be closed. So much for that.
There are over a hundred pictures that are served up randomly every time you visit or change pages. They are of earlier pictures of interest and also some just to remind me of things.
A Sony AX33 4K, a video camera that takes stills too. What am I doing with that? I take pictures from my Kayak a lot. I found I was missing interesting shots, because my pic was being processed in my camera, before it would let me take another pic. Since I like to take what I call action stills, I bought this camera to take videos, that I could make stills out of, but, as a bonus, this camera also came with buttons to just take stills and that's what I mostly do, unless something is real interesting or too far away for my still zooms. My digilat zoom setting for video goes to two hundred x, and sometimes I need that, but usually, I only use the 10x lens zoom. Because this camera is HD and 4K, the quality has to be real good and it has a lot of stabilizers on it which really helps out a lot for taking pics on the water.
The other thing it has that is a must is a view finder and I had to buy Sony's top of the line cam to get it. This is a must for taking pics on the water, as you must hold the camera as still as posible and putting that eye piece to the eye forms a tripod with your arms that helps a lot. The eye piece is also a must as it works way better than a LED screen to see what you are taking a picture of in the daylight as the LED screens wash out easily in sunlight.
I also have another video camera, a Canon VIXIA G30. I use them both to mostly take stills. The Sony takes higher resolution stills than the G30. That was a bit of a disappointment as I bought the G30 to replace an older camera I dunked in the river, but then had to buy the Sony to get higher still picture resolution that the G30 was lacking.
