Is That Harbor Seal Ok and the New Pressure Cooker Cooks Beans

Thursday January 21, 2016 Jenner CA.

A bit of wind, but no rain

Checking the weather down at Jenner this morning with the weather guys, they said no rain, but there might be winds to ten miles an hour. Not too bad so I drove on down to Jenner and got there just before noon.

There was a bit of wind, but not too bad. I headed across the river to Penny Island to decide which way to go today, up or down the river. The wind was blowing down the river and it was going to low tide, so there was a fair amount of current. Why fight it, I got into the wind and the current and headed down stream along the shore  of the island which looked like this as I paddled along, mostly letting the wind and the current carry me down.

There were some ducks floating on the water surface and diving for food. Most of them were golden eyes, but there was also some buffle heads in there too.

River’s mouth is open

That guy you see down there on the beach kicked all these seagulls into the air for a bit as I approached the open river’s mouth on the right side.

The ocean wasn’t very rough today, the calmest I’ve seen it in awhile, but there still was a lot of water flowing out the mouth from the recent rains and the fact that the estuary was draining from it going to low tide right now.

There were a bunch of seagulls bathing and preening in the water. And a couple of brown pelicans were mixed in there too.

Fast current

With the fast current flowing out into the ocean, I didn’t stay by the open mouth long at all as it was hard to keep my boat from drifting towards the ocean.

After a short time, I left, paddling back up the river along here, just up from the mouth.

Is that harbor seal in distress

I was paddling across the river back over to the lower end of Penny Island when I saw this harbor seal swimming around what looked like a dead harbor seal.

I paddled up close to see if it was indeed dead, but it wasn’t. However, I think it is in some kind of distress, maybe sick or dying or thinking of giving birth as I’ve heard of some pups being born already, a bit early.

I got fairly close and it didn’t take off like the other seal did that was watching it. I left it looking like this, as the other seal came back to it’s side.

These harbor seals were concerned

There were some other seals in the water just behind me that were also keeping an eye on the seal as well as me.

Paddling against the current

I left the seals there to let nature do her thing whatever that might be and headed up the Penny Island back channel. I barely made it up the back channel as it was going to a real low tide which made it shallow and hard to paddle in the increased current. I had to paddle a lot harder than I thought I would and barely made it past a shallow spot.

Paddling up the back channel just before I got to the shallow spot and the current got stronger.

I had to paddle pretty hard through the shallow spot, so when I made it to this spot, I pulled in to take a much needed break.

Resting in this spot

I slowly worked my way up to the Eagle’s landing area here were I rested some more.

I decided that was far enough up the river today, so I crossed over the river by Paddy’s rock to check for birds along the shoreline.

This pair of buffle head ducks passed by me cautiously.

Winter day

I saw a few birds as I paddled down the river, but not many as it seemed to be a winter day and most birds had left the area or were hunkered down. Just a nice winter day here.

I’m headed down to the boat ramp here down by the town of Jenner up ahead, just drifting down the river on the current with a bit of wind pushing me along too.

New pressure cooker has arrived

I pulled my boat out of the water and went on home for the day. I found a box on my porch which was my new pressure cooker. I unpacked it and spent a good deal of time reading the do’s and don’ts in the cook book.

After studying the book, I cooked up a pot of black beans I’d had soaking, Except for forgetting to put the onions in the mix, my first batch of beans turned out well, so I think this thing will work out. One of the reasons I wanted a pressure cooker is so I can cook dried beans and rice in my van without taking all day about it.

That was my day.