Friday September 27, 2013 Jenner, CA.
They are still taking the lower dams out
On the way to kayak Jenner this morning, I stopped in to see how the dam guys were doing, as it’s on the way. They were still working away, taking the boards out of the Vacation Beach dam.
Here is a picture of the guys removing a board to haul it out. Note the dam is about half way down.
Here they are getting ready to hoist the board out and move it to the pickup truck.
Talking with one of the guys, he said they took two boards out of the Guerneville dam this morning before coming down here to work, as he said they needed to get that one started down in order to make the October 1 deadline. Looks like they are making good progress with this one too.
The Russian River mouth is still closed
I drove down to Jenner to the river’s end overlook to see how the river’s mouth was doing. It was still closed with sand as seen in the below picture, looking out over the river into the pacific ocean. Nice day too.
A closer look at the closed river’s mouth. closed up tight.
There is a big rock in the water just below the highway overlook. Some harbor seals where using it. Most of them are taking a little nap under the water.
Kayaking Jenner, checking out the closed river mouth
I drove back to the Jenner launch area and put my boat in the water at about noon. There was just a little wind so far today. I headed over to Penny Island and on down toward the mouth area to check it out.
Some seagulls were flying around and landing on the sandy beach to take it easy, like me, just inside the closed river mouth.
I paddled into the river’s mouth area to see just how high the sand was blocking the mouth. Just in front of my kayak is the closed portion, just to the right of the cement jetty.
There’s just over a foot or so of sand closing it, as can be seen below. The whole Pacific ocean is just on the other side of those rocks. See the little bit of white foam from a wave that just hit. The water from the dams being taken out should be enough to go over this sand and wash it out. At least that’s what it did last year. We’ll see if it does it again this year, or not?
I stayed down at the end of river for a couple hours looking around and just taking it easy and then slowly worked my way back to the west end of Penny Island.The wind had come up a little, but not near as good as yesterday.
On the way in to the take out area, I passed by these mallard ducks that were feeding along the shoreline.
I got my boat out of the water and on my car and headed on towards home about 2:30 PM, so stopped back in to see how the dam guys were making out.
The Vacation Beach dam is mostly down now
Boy, they’ve been working real hard as they had most of the boards down when I arrived and they were just headed for home.
The Vacation Beach dam is mostly down now, looking up the river.
The dam guys will be concentrating on taking the Guerneville dam out now, as they have to get it down to make the dam down deadline of Oct. 1.
There were a lot of crawdads in the water by the dam still getting use to the fact that most of the water was gone.
I went on home and had something to eat and took a nap, of course. I spent the rest of the day puttering around in the yard, picking up brush and putting some fire wood away that I had trimmed in the yard.
Nice day.
