Thursday March 19, 2015 Jenner CA.
The sun was out and the wind was down as I drove into Jenner this morning. I could see Ray in his kayak sitting across the river by Penny Island as I put my boat in the water. I joined Ray and we were sitting around deciding which way to go today. Since it was high tide and we hadn’t been down to the river’s mouth in awhile we had decided to head down that way.
Two friendly geese fly in
While we were sitting there making these tough decisions for the day, we could see these two geese flying in right in front of us and they landed right next to us like they must know us or something. They were only fifty feet or so from us and acting like we weren’t there even though we were in plain sight.
Eventually we started down towards the river’s mouth and the geese moved along just ahead of us, just like old pals.
Hunting harbor seals
We left the geese as they headed around the tip of Penny Island. We were crossing over the open water when we saw these large wakes along the shoreline which usually only means one thing. The harbor seals were hunting fish along the shoreline. Sure enough, eventually, a harbor seal popped up briefly and then was gone.
Headed for the open river’s mouth area
This was our view as we paddled down towards the river’s mouth area across the open river water.
As we entered the open mouth area, we could see these cormorants resting on the shore.
High tide
It was high tide, so ocean water was flowing into the open mouth. There was a lot of wood debrie in the mouth, indicating the spot the cold dense ocean water was diving under the warmer river water, right in front of us. A goldeneye duck swam by with some harbor seals on the sandy beach in the background.
Surfs up
There were some surfers enjoying the nice waves in front of the open mouth area.
A harbor seal checks out one of the surfers as he looks for a spot to get back out into the waves.
Just a little walk
Ray was wondering if I wanted to go for a little walk. We both were feeling a little lazy, so I suggested an easy walk to the Swamp Rock, so we left the mouth area and headed up the Penny Island back channel to the Swamp rock trailhead.
We landed our boats at the swamp rock trailhead here.
Headed to swamp rock across the swamp
We were headed for that rock up on the hillside, to the left of center top. It’s a little hard to make out in this picture, but you can see it is up on the hillside, across this swamp area. We were hoping the water had receded in the swamp so we could get up onto the rock. 
The water had just barely gone out of the swamp, so we were able to cross the swamp area to the rock, with things being just a little muddy, but not too bad.
I’m following Ray across the swamp area in this picture.
I found the trail the animals use and made it to the front side of the rock where there is a place to sit and enjoy the day. Here, I’m waiting for Ray to catch up as he comes up the animal trail, looking across the river to the town of Jenner.
This is the place on the front of the rock, just below the top of it where we sat for a good while enjoying the view. Lots of little green ferns on the ground here.
Ray was just wondering
Ray was wondering what was up on top of the rock, which meant we had to find the trail up to it, which was fairly steep. I’m following Ray up to the top of the rock in this picture.
We made it to the top of the rock and Ray is checking out some scat or was it bones he found on the top of the rock. You can see it’s a fairly good view from this spot.
The top of the rock wasn’t enough
Being explorers, the top of the rock wasn’t enough. The animal trail seemed to continue up the hill, although not easy to get through the brush. There went the easy little walk we were going to do and now we had to work at getting up the trail. We went up the trail puffing away until I found some tall grass where I declared a rest area, so we stopped to enjoy the view.
We were sitting in this tall grass, which was one of the few places that the poison oak wasn’t too thick.
We sat for awhile, then Ray gets up and starts exploring again, so I get up and follow him down the hill, working our way through the thick brush.
That so called short little walk sure tired us both out as we returned to the boats and got back in the water.
We took our time heading back in for the day, but we finally made it to the boat ramp, loaded our boats and went on home for the day. I had planned to do some yard work, but when I got home, a nap was all I had left in me and that was my day.
