Sunday August 18, 2013 Jenner, CA.
The tide was right, but the moon was not
I spent most of the day tidying up things in my house, just a little, as it would take a year or two to tidy it all up, but I figure I have to start somewhere. I puttered at that all day with some naps and some sitting in the yard too.
Around six PM, I left for Jenner to do another evening kayak to see what I could learn about the lumens. High tide was about right at nine PM, 6.5 feet, which is fairly high for this area, so it would bring a lot of salt water and plankton into the river’s estuary.
I was on the water just before seven PM and paddled across to Penny Island where I sat for awhile deciding where to go this evening.
The sun was heading down. It was clear out, no fog and almost no breeze either. A real nice evening.
This is the view I had from my spot at Penny Island.
I decided this was going to be sunset picture night, so headed down toward the mouth of the river. Some red was showing up in the sky and reflecting on the water.
There were a lot of birds roosting on the shore there, seagulls, terns, pelicans and cormorants. Something spooked them and they all jumped into the air before settling down again shortly after this picture was taken.
We were going to high tide. The ocean was fairly rough.
This is looking out the river’s mouth into the Pacific ocean, just before the sun went on down. See those big waves.
Another picture out the river’s mouth into the Pacific ocean.
And another one. Do you see the surfer in front of the rock on the left? There appeared to be several of them out there riding the big waves.
After the sun went down, I slowly worked my way back to the west end of Penny Island while waiting for it to get dark.
This is my view, just after the sun went below the horizon.
About this time, I put the camera away as there wasn’t enough light to get any more pictures, but the moon was already fairly high in the sky, which was really washing out any chance to see any lumens as there just didn’t seem to be any dark shadows from any trees, along the shoreline. It was just too bright.
When it finally did get as dark as it was going to get with the big moon, I headed up the backside of Penny Island looking for some dark spots out of the moons rays, but found none. I was surprised to find mostly fresh water in the channel area, so there wouldn’t of been much in the lumen department in that area anyway. I didn’t get into any cold ocean salt water until I made it up to the Otter’s log, just up above Penny Island, but still too bright to see any lumens.
From there I headed out to the middle of the river where the moon was shining brightly and slowly made my way down the river to the take out at the visitor’s center, very leisurely, as the combination of the moon and the flat water made for an enjoyable time. It was just before ten PM.
One of the reasons I wanted to go out tonight to check for lumens is I wanted to see if there were any fish out there to compare to last night when there were almost none.
Since the lumens were almost invisible, so would any fish be, so I wasn’t able to learn much about that, but I will eventually.
A nice night to be kayaking in the moonlight at Jenner.