Monday October 31, 2016 Jenner CA.
I had a phone call to make first thing
I had to stick around this morning to make a call to my van’s TBI kit manufacturer that was in the east US. They would be going to lunch just as I got up, so I had to wait a bit to call before I could take off to kayak.
I called and unfortunately, the guy I needed to talk with was still on vacation for one more day, so that wasn’t very productive.
Off to kayak Jenner
So I got a late start. John, Ray’s brother had sent me an email saying he’d be down there kayaking today, but I wasn’t sure I could find him.
However as I drove into Jenner I could see a kayak in Penny Island’s back channel, but I couldn’t tell which way it was going, up or down the river.
I put my boat in the water and decided to head into the little channel on the upper end of the island as I could catch the kayaker or see if it had going on down the river, so I headed on over to the upper end of Penny Island along here.
Rain is on it’s way
The day was overcast and it was supposed to rain later this afternoon and the wind was down which is always nice.
I pulled into the little channel on the upper end of the island here to have a look out the other side for the kayaker.
I find John
I looked down the channel and no kayak, but when I looked up the river, there it was and it was John. He was out of range, so I gave him some whistles which he finally heard and stopped so I could catch up with him.
We shot the bull for a bit, then decided to head on up the river a bit, shooting the bull all the way.
There’s an otter
John says there’s an otter. It dove and all we could see was a bubble trail going by us as it swim under the water to get around us as it was also headed up the river.
It surfaced just ahead of us.
It came out of the water to see what we were doing.
It seemed to be sleepy as most of my pictures of it looked like this, looking like it needed a nap.
After it checked us out, it moved back into the water and continued swimming on up the river and was gone.
We also continued paddling on up the river but not very far. We were starting to get spitted on by the rain. Very light, but big cold drops, but not really enough to bother us much.
River’s muddy from the rains
But we did decide we were far enough up the river and crossed over it here to the side on the right, by Paddy’s rock. The river’s water is a bit muddy from the recent rains.
We paddled on down along the shoreline looking for birds. There weren’t many birds out today, likely because of the weather.
We did pass by these mallard ducks.
John’s looking for old wood
John was looking for some well weathered wood pieces for his wife for some artsy type projects she was working on, so we went ashore here to look at some wood we spied.
John picked up a small log here and tied it to his boat.
We continued on down. John said he had stashed a wood block on the island earlier and needed to go get it so we crossed to the island here.
Are we going to get caught in the rain
About this time, the rain was starting to pick up just a little. It looked like the rain was going to come in before the weather guys said it would
We are paddling down along the island here.
I saw this great blue heron by the shoreline so stopped to get a picture of it. I got real close before it took to the air with a squawk.
I turned my boat away and it flew right back to the same place.
John picks up another treasure
Just beyond that was were John had stashed the piece of wood for his wife. He loaded it into his boat with the other log.
Looking down from that spot towards the river’s open mouth looked like this. Those are coots out there feeding on dead vegetation below the water level.
Here’s the coots and you can see all the seagulls that took off down by the river’s mouth area.
Rains are picking up
The rain continued to pick up as we headed on over to the boat ramp and was starting to come down as we took our boats out of the water and went on home for the day.
I think we got out of there just in time as it really started raining as I drove on home.
It was raining pretty good when I got home, so I got a fire going and took it easy for the rest of the day and that was my day.