Otters, a Sea Lion, Birds, a Rescue, Paddling in the Rain

Tuesday January 5, 2016 Jenner CA.

It was raining again this morning, but the weather guy said it would let up around noon to five, so I headed out to Jenner to kayak for the day around noon.

Overlook

I drove on down to the overlook at the mouth just to check things out. Big huge waves were crashing into the beach from the ocean over washing the beaches with water. The river’s mouth was plenty open, but a little restricted and backing the estuary up to around seven feet at the visitor center. And the river water was muddy from last nights rains.

Boats in

I drove on back to the boat ramp and put my rain gear on and put my boat in the water. Not much wind today as I paddled across to the upper end of Penny Island.

I went by this great blue heron which was drying out from the recent rain.

Just a shower

I paddled on up the river along the south shoreline. As I approached the eagle’s landing area, it began to rain, so I pulled under the big trees there and sat here until the shower subsided.

I had my rain gear on, but it’s still nice to sit under a big tree and wait it out at least until the tree gets saturated with rain. When that happens there’s usually bigger drops falling off of the tree so one might as well go back out in the rain. But it stopped before that happened today.

I continued on up to the Muskrat area and sat for a bit and then  crossed over the river to the north shoreline in this spot to look for birds.

A duck day

I paddled down along the north shoreline and ran into these ducks resting in the grass. Mergansers and some mallards.

I was sitting along the shore just past those ducks when there was a big splash right in front of me, but I didn’t see what made it, so I backed up a bit to watch to see if what made the splash would surface anywhere.

Otters

Eventually an otter popped up. There were about three of them. I paddled further out into the center of the river to give them some room and make them think I wasn’t interested in them.  They headed across to the other side of the river.

I followed the otters to the other side and they went into the brush and left the river for the shore, so I moved on down the river.

There were quite a number of ducks on the river here and there today. Here’s some golden eyed ones I passed. The dive to feed.

Headed for the mouth area

I decided to head on down to the river’s mouth so I paddled on down the north side of Penny Island which looked like this.

Something’s up

As I got to the lower end of Penny island I saw the lifeguard ranger’s truck making a bee line towards the jetty so I watched to see what’s up, but couldn’t tell anything from where I was.

Later I learned that a fifteen year old boy had been in the ocean, but was able to get out and was real cold. I didn’t get any more details about the incident than that. The ocean is about fifty one degrees F. and can suck the heat out of ones body in less than a half hour. When that happens, you can’t move and will likely die.

Sea lion

I started across the river headed to the mouth area when it started to rain and there were no trees around. See that thing that looks like a tree in the water up ahead?

As I paddled closer I could see it wasn’t a tree, but a sea lion getting a nap.

Rain squall and then the sun

Once I realized what it was, I backed up a bit, then a rain squall hit and it poured for about ten minutes. It rained so hard I couldn’t see anything. About that time I was thinking I might as well head in for the day as I was sure I would be a bit on the damp side from this deluge. I started to head in when the rain stopped and the sun came out, so I turned around again and headed back to the mouth area.

The big waves were still crashing into the beach so I didn’t get too close.

I hung around that area watching things for about a half hour, then headed on back to the boat ramp for the day.

I put the boat on the car and went on home for the day and got home just before dark.

That was my day for another good one.