Friday, Mar. 1, 2013, Yuma, AZ.

Kayaking the Colorado, above Yuma

I camped on the Yuma Proving Grounds, just outside of the refuge area last night, near Clearlake. Can’t camp on the refuge it seems.

This morning I awoke not feeling too good. I headed down river, just the same.

A bunch of old Army tanks.

While passing though the Yuma Proving Grounds, I saw these old tanks by the side of the road so stopped in to take a look.

Below you can see some of the old tanks by the road.

It’s hard to find a nice place to kayak around here.

After checking them out for about a half hour I continued down the river looking for a place to put the boat in the water. With so much water in the Colorado, you’d think that would be easy, but they have most of it blocked.

I did find a place to put in just above Yuma, on some state land. It says I’m supposed to have some kind of permit to enter, but I don’t and have no idea where to get one, not that I would anyway.

Stuff is spooked around here.

Most of the birds and critters on this river are real spooky and real hard to get decent pictures of them.

Below is a picture of the Colorado River near where I put the boat in the water.

Big turtles.

After kayaking for a couple hours, I came back to the put in area and paddled around a bit and saw this osprey with a fish, so I took a picture, but it was a ways away and I could just barely see it and I thought there were some other birds by it. But when I put it on the computer and took a closer look, I was surprised. The things I thought were birds turned out to be four really big turtles of some kind.

Below, you can see the picture after I blew it up a bit. Do they look like turtles to you?

I was off the water by about six pm and made some dinner and am now camped in the same spot as where I yakked.

Can’t beat the Russian River.

This river just doesn’t compare to the Russian River. There’s no place like home, they say and I’ll say it too.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I will go by Yuma and do some shopping and then head east on highway 8 to a place called Growler. There I will try to find the Growler ponds, which are two small bass fishing ponds which I may camp at or I may continue up the hill from there to check out the south entrance to the Kofa refuge.

Feeling a bit better now, but something has been making me feel a little on the ill side.