Saturday December 13, 2014 Jenner CA.
It looked like it was going to be a nice day so I headed on down to Jenner and put in my boat. The water was muddy, but down about five feet from yesterday. Even though the water level was down today, the river was flowing even faster than yesterday. I’d say somewhere around twenty miles an hour down the middle.
I headed up the side of the river by the ramp until I got far enough up to cross the river over to the east end of Penny Island figuring I’d lose some while crossing over the fast river.
I made it over to the island and thought the back channel was flowing even faster than the main channel. I crossed over to the south shoreline and headed on up the river staying in close to the shoreline so I could make it up without too much trouble.
I’ve just crossed over to the south side and stopped here for a short break before continuing on up.
Here I am moving up the river by eagle’s landing. With the river muddy, there aren’t many birds around today. Mostly Bufflehead ducks floating on the water here and there.
I had to work a bit, but I made it up to the muskrat area where I sat here for awhile checking things out.
Eventually, I crossed the river over to Paddy’s rock where I could see a lone kayak coming up the river that turned out to be John.
We decided to paddle at least up to the bridge.
When we got to the bridge, we decided to paddle up to Willow Creek and headed that way.
As we were going and almost up there, John discovers an ice chest and ties it to his boat which slows him down some, so we decide not to make it to Willow creek, but cross back over the river to the south side and head down in the fast current.
Here we are moving down the river in a fast current, somewhere around twenty miles an hour.
When we approach the east end of Penny Island we find Ken scrounging around in this big pile of debrie. He found a paddle in it.
John and I continued on down the back channel of the island and on the west end there was this big chest. John went to shore to check it out. He opened it up and found it full of balls of all sorts. I had seen several nice looking kick balls along the shoreline earlier which must of come out of this chest.
Not sure where the chest came from, I suspect one of the camps on Austin creek maybe?
We left it all there, not needing any balls, if anyone wants to claim it.
While John was messing with the box, a bunch of harbor seals were out in front of the island watching his every move.
We weren’t going down to the river’s mouth as the current was stronger down that way than we wanted to deal with, so I just took a picture down that way as we rounded the Island end to head back in.
Our view as we headed back up the side of the island towards the boat ramp. The current had slowed down some by now as it was high tide, but it was still going around seven miles an hour, just a guess.
As we were taking out our boats, the sun was almost down and it looked like this as we loaded our boats.
Nice day paddling around the estuary.
