Monday March 23, 2015 Jenner CA.
John tests his kayak
I could see John at the boat ramp as I pulled into Jenner today. He was putting a kayak in the water as I backed on down the ramp to put my boat in the water. He had a kayak I hadn’t seen him with before. He said it was a kayak he had just put a plastic weld on and was going to test it out to see if his patch had worked or not.
He launched his kayak and it seemed to not be leaking, so we paddled across the river to Penny Island and decided to go up the river to the Indian Rock Trailhead and go was a little walk up on the ridge top.
There was a light wind as we headed on up the river, but not bad at all. Even a little sun was peaking through the clouds.
This was our view as we paddled along the shoreline headed up the river.
Went ashore at Indian Rock Trailhead
We landed at the Indian Rock trailhead, tied our boats up to make sure they would be there when we got back and started on the trail that went straight up the hill.
When we got to the top of the ridge, it looked like this. Some wild iris flowers were blooming.
We were headed to the Old Indian Ladies Face Rock which you can see here.
Looking for wild pigs
We had been listening for wild turkeys, but heard none all day. We sat on the big rock and scanned the hill across the river for wild pigs as that’s where I saw some yesterday. Here’s John scanning the hill across the river for wild pigs from the big rock.
John says, I see them. I say, where, as it’s a big hill over there. He directs me to where they are and I finally spot them. Two big pigs that don’t seem to be the same ones I saw yesterday, as they had no little ones. John thought they looked like a couple boars. They were a long ways away and this was the best photo I could get of them as they grazed on the grasses over there.
Shooting the bull on the big rock
We stayed on that big rock for about an hour looking for pigs and turkeys and just enjoying the day, shooting the bull.
Eventually, we left the rock and walked further up the ridge through these wild flowers.
Alligator lizard
As I was walking this thing caught my eye just before I was going to step on it. It’s an alligator lizard. They usually move just about the time you’re going to step on them and scare the heck out of you. This one was only about eight inches long.
We could see the Pacific ocean off in the distance from the ridge top as we walked along through the grass. And yes, there was also a lot of poison oak mixed in with the grasses and bushes, but we don’t catch it.
Lookout Point
We walked over to this spot I call Lookout Point and sat for a bit looking down at Penny Island and the town of Jenner.
We had to walk through some big green ferns to get back to the river as I’m following John.
We made it down to Lower Lookout Point here and sat for awhile on this rock overlooking the river. That’s Paddy’s rock down there in the river.
Poison Oak Alley Trail
It was only a short slide down to the river from that rock. Now we were on the trail along the river which I call Poison Oak Alley trail, mostly because it has a bunch of poison oak on it. Here’s John going through some horse tail grass as we headed back towards our boats.
John’s boat is leaking
We made it back to our boats. When John got back in his boat, he says he thinks his boat is leaking because the water is higher in his scupper holes, but he’s not sure. As we paddled across the river, John had to stop and move his wallet out of his back pocket as he was sitting in water.
These geese honked at us as we continued on down the river still looking for more wild pigs up on the hill.
We didn’t see any more wild pigs, but we did go by this pair of mallard ducks sitting on the shoreline resting.
John’s boat is leaking for sure
John still wasn’t sure if and how bad his boat was leaking until we got to the boat ramp and he tried to lift it out of the water. The boat had a lot of water inside it and was not easy to get out of the water. I helped him put it in his truck and we barely were able to get it on the truck. His boat was a sit on top kayak, so it had a sealed air pocket in the middle of it, which is what was filling with water. Once water got into the air pocket, there was no way to easily get the water back out of it.
Looking at John’s backside, it looked like he had wet his pants. :O) Lucky the water wasn’t too cold today.
We got off the water around six PM and I was beat so went on home and hit the couch for a nap and that was it for me for another nice day.