Foggy, Misty, Rainy Day, But Nice Paddling Around Jenner

Sunday November 1, 2015 Jenner CA.

Was it raining yet

I popped out of bed this morning and looked out the front window to see if the pavement was wet or dry. It was wet, meaning the rains were starting a bit early. It rained lightly as I drove down to Jenner this morning, but I was hopping it might not be raining at Jenner as sometimes it’s not, but there was a a lite rain as I drove on in. Instead of heading to the boat ramp, I continued on down to the river’s mouth overlook on highway 1, just past Jenner. I got out of the car and was taking this picture looking over the river, out down to Goat rock on the Pacific ocean. It was mostly misty in this spot.

Couple guys

There were a couple guys sitting inside the back of a car with the back hatch door open. One of them asked if I was Bob? I said yes, are you Larry as I’d been tipped off that there was a guy down here taking some good photos of what he saw in the ocean from this spot. It was Larry, so we talked a bit and he showed me some of his pictures that he’d been getting from the overlook. He had some of whales, a porpoise eating a big fish and some eagles among others. He sees things from up in this spot that I can’t see from down in my boat on the river. We chatted for awhile and I noticed there was mostly just a mist in the air so I was eager to get my boat in the water, so I headed on back to the boat ramp and put my boat in the water, putting my rain gear on before I took off, just in case.

Foggy

I paddled across the river and on down the side of this island to the lower end where I saw this great blue heron and some cormorants taking it easy. It was a bit foggy, but the wind was down so the water was mostly flat.

Droopy hawk

I could see some bird on the flooded Island so I paddled onto the island to have a look. This hawk was looking weird and as I got closer I could see it was sitting there with it’s wings drooped down, maybe to dry them off.

Down by the mouth

The hawk took off and flew on up the river so I headed across the water towards the closed river’s mouth where I went by this cormorant.

There were a lot of seagulls resting on the sand and in the water and just a few of the harbor seals resting there today. Most of the harbor seals stay on the ocean side when the mouth is closed.

Some of the seals where in the water swimming around as I paddled on down to the end of the river to check out some birds I could see down that way.

I went by these cormorants resting on this rock.

And I paddled down and watched this egret fishing in the rocks and occasionally catching a small fish.

I hung around the mouth area for quite a spell as it was real nice.

After awhile I headed back up to Penny Island and paddled onto the flooded part going in here. Not much wind, eh.

As I paddled in, I went past these birds taking it easy. A great blue heron and some cormorants.

Up the river

I hung on the flooded island for a bit, but not much was happening, so I headed on up the island back channel to the upper end where I went by Pops the seal and some more cormorants resting on a big redwood log.

Rain shower

I worked my way slowly up the river until I got to Eagle’s landing here when it started to rain lightly, so I pulled under the big trees here to see if I could wait the rain out.

I sat in my boat in this spot while it rained, hoping it would stop before the big trees got saturated and it would start to rain big drops on me, which didn’t really matter too much as I had my rain gear on.

About the time I thought the rain was going to penetrate the trees, it stopped and was just misty, so I paddled across the river to Paddy’s rock and went on down the shoreline looking for birds. It was foggy, so I didn’t take many pictures along the way.

I crossed back over to the upper end of Penny Island and noticed the old milk barn was looking good in this light and was also casting a reflection in the water so I took some pictures of it.

I hung around in this area for quite a spell not wanting to head in to the boat ramp, but eventually, I did cross back over the river to the boat ramp and checked out the water level gage at the visitor center. It reads about 8.5 feet. Up about six inches since yesterday. When it gets to nine feet, they will breech the sand bar at the mouth dropping the estuary water level before it floods the visitor center which it does at ten feet.

I took my boat out of the water and went on home where I didn’t do much of anything the rest of the day

That was my day for another nice one.