Wednesday, Apr. 10, 2013, Monte Rio, CA.

A nice spring day on the river today.

Today’s plan was to kayak with my brother Mike. We went down to Jenner, but the wind was starting to come up and there was a light fog in the air which made it cooler, so we went back up the river to Monte Rio to kayak instead, which we were hoping would be more on the sunny side.

We put our boats in the water at Monte Rio and headed slowly down the river. There was some breeze, but not too bad.

Below is a picture of the river just below Monte Rio as we headed down the river.

Lots of spring flowers along the banks.Below is a picture of the Villa Grande hole, just below Monte Rio. We stopped here for awhile before moving on down the river.

The wind was picking up a bit as we continued down the river.Below is a picture of the windy river just above a place called Sheridan beach, the next turn past the Villa Grande hole.

Bovinasourous on the river.

We stopped for awhile just below the Sheridan beach area. On this beach were some Bovinasourouses. The calf looked like it was just born not too long ago and was a bit on the wobbly side. Below, you can see this new born calf.

Ryan’s beach area was our target.

We continued down the river to the Ryan’s beach area, where there wasn’t much wind. This is as far as we were going down the river today. We rested in this area for quite awhile before heading back up the river.

Below you can see my brother in his yak in front of the sandy Ryan’s beach on the right.

Kicked back.

As you can see below, my brother is kicked back and taking it easy at the Ryan’s beach hole, also known as the Moscow hole.

The wind died down.

We headed back up the river after awhile. The wind had calmed down quite a bit by now, so it was real nice.

Below, is a picture of a big ol redwood tree that floated down the river a couple winters ago. Looking at the tree, I realized there would have been hundreds of these old trees in the river in the old days before they were removed by man. Redwood trees don’t rot easily and they grow for a couple thousand or so years. If just one or a few went down the river per year, there would have been hundreds in the river in the old days before man removed them for various reasons. Now, most of this fish protection is gone.

Look close for the big redwood tree along the bank. It’s a couple hundred feet long.

We continued up the river toward Monte Rio. This pair of Mallard ducks was sharing a log with a turtle just below Monte Rio.

There is usually a lot of turtles along this stretch of the river. Two more of them in the picture below.

We continued up the river to the Monte Rio take out and were off the water around four pm.

Had a nice day kayaking the river.