Saturday, May 4, 2013, Jenner, CA.
I was wondering if there were any lumens in the river yet?
As far as I knew, it’s early for lumens in the river, but if you don’t check, you don’t know. I decided to check that out this evening, but first, I had some yard work to do and a tree to get grafted.
The day started with some yard work.
After a cup of coffee, I wondered out the door to see what I had to do in the yard. An hour or so of mowing the weeds with my mower and then I raked up some redwood and pepperwood leaves for my blueberry patch. I got it raked up, but not on the blueberry patch……….yet.
Grafting the citrus tree.
My friend Bryce came by to do some grafting on a citrus tree that the top died during a frost and grow back to a type tree that didn’t produce good fruit, so the only thing to do was graft something that I could eat on it. I choose a Darby tangerine. Bryce is a good grafter so I let him do his thing.
Below, he is just starting to cut the top of the tree off.
Below, Bryce is finishing up the project by painting some sealer on the grafted pieces, so it won’t dry out.
A new headlight for the car.
After that, we shot the bull for awhile, then I went down to the local auto parts store and got a new headlight for my car. I brought it home and put it in the car. Of course the battery had to come out to put it in, but it went ok.
Time to get on the water.
Now for a little dinner and then I was off to Jenner to kayak, around five PM. I wanted to be there after dark to check to see if there were any lumens yet. I didn’t really expect any, but thought I should check, for scientific purposes,…… you know? :O)
When I got there, Steve was there taking a break in the parking lot, as he’d been there most of the day, but was going back out to check for lumens with me.
We wanted to see some lumens.
It was still early as we needed it to be dark to see the lumens, so we crossed over to the Penny Island and, slowly worked our way around to the back channel on the east end where we pulled ashore for an hour or so.
This bird was on a redwood stump as we rounded the island end. Sand Piper, maybe?
Below we have just rounded the island end and are headed down the back channel. We will pull out for awhile on the island end, just in front of Steve, which is the east end of Penny Island. Notice it’s a bit on the foggy side in Jenner.
Killing time on Penny Island.
Below is a view of the area we pulled to shore on Penny Island, looking west down the backside of the island.
After we left he island we worked our way down toward the river’s mouth, where high tide was just starting to cause the salt water to come into the river’s mouth, which is what brings in the lumens, if there are any.
Foam on the water usually means the salt water is coming in on the high tide.
Below, the foam is caused from all the little bubbles that come in with the high tide. The cold salt water dives down under the warmer river water, but the bubbles can’t go down, so they pile up in big gobs. The bubbles mark the spot, if you know what to look for, where this action takes place. The river’s mouth is in the background.
The below picture is a view that shows it getting dark and it’s a bit foggy too. This is looking back up the river from the rivers mouth area, just before dark.
It finally got dark enough to look for lumens, so Steve and I looked around a bit. It wasn’t ideal conditions, mostly because the high tide was just starting to come in when it got dark. The more salt water that comes in the river, the better the chances of seeing some lumens. One could just wait around longer for more salt water to enter the river, but it would mean staying out later and I like to get to bed eventually, so I do it this way.
I continue to learn about how and why these lumens do their thing in the river. There’s still a bunch I don’t know about them. Last year I collected a lot of knowledge about them for the first time, so if you are interested, you might want to check out some of the lumens postings starting in August. Usually, they are known to be in August, but last year, I found them going though September too.
I was surprised by the lumens.
I didn’t think we’d see any lumens, but I got a surprise. They showed up in a couple spots, not real strong, but definitely there. That’s all I wanted to see. I wasn’t really out to enjoy the lumens as much as I just wanted to see if there were any in the water this early in the year and the answer is, yes there are lumens in the water, so now I can plan some more exploring around them.
We headed back in around nine PM.
Below is what Jenner looked like just after dark.
I was really surprised to see the lumens out this early.
Lumens are phyto phosphorous plankton, that’s why I call them lumens. They glow in the dark when anything moves by them, so one can see fish swimming under the water, when conditions are right.
We had a nice day.