Friday November 14, 2014 Jenner CA.
Ray was at the boat ramp this morning putting his boat in the water as I arrived at Jenner. We decided to head up the river a ways.
Not much happening today
Just as we were going along Penny Island, Ray says, not much happening today. That’s a good thing as every time I’ve thought that, something interesting happens.
We continued on up the river at our leisurely pace traveling along the south shoreline. We were almost up to the highway one bridge, when we went by these ferns that looked real green.
Feeling Lazy
I was ready to continue on up the river, but Ray was thinking better of it, saying if we did, we’d have to paddle back. Ray was feeling a bit lazy today and so was I so we crossed over the river to the north shore line and started back down the river.
Watching nervous coots
We were watching a big flock of coots that seemed to be a little on the nervous side by Paddy’s rock and wondering what might be spooking them. We couldn’t see any big birds up in the sky, or anything in the water. They continued to spook as we paddled along.
Lazy River Otter
Just as we came around some trees on the shore line where some grass started there appeared this otter getting some sun and trying to rest, about twenty feet or so from us. I picked up my camera and hoped Ray, who was in front, would not move and he didn’t so I started taking pictures.
Like I said, we were real close to this otter and it knew we were there, but it wasn’t planning to give up it’s nice sunny spot.
It kept an eye on us, but otherwise didn’t seem to care that we were so close. It looked like it might have something wrong with it’s eyes, but I think it was just trying to close them to get a nap, especially in the bright sun light.
Ray moved ahead a bit in his boat and I continued to take pictures as the otter put on a show for us, while I tried not to move too much.
Some rolling on the back.
Aw, feels good.
No coyote
We left the otter to it’s nap and continued on down looking to see if the coyote was around. We didn’t see it and looking at all the birds that were around there today, it wasn’t likely in the area.
Pounding ocean
As we approached Penny Island we could hear the ocean pounding the shores down by the closed river’s mouth, so we decided to go down there and see what was going on.
On the way, we passed these birds in the water taking baths and preening. Some brown pelicans and some seagulls.
There were lots of seagulls resting on the beach today and some in the water too. These seagulls just jumped into the air, spooked from something, while we looked on over to the closed river’s mouth.
Harbor seals
There were two bunches of harbor seals resting on the beach.
This one with some seagulls and some pelicans.
And this one, with some seagulls and people scaring the birds.
Closed River’s mouth
The ocean has been piling the sand even higher on the closed river’s mouth and the water level of the estuary is about 7.5 feet. We didn’t see any waves breaking over the sand, but we could tell the waves had been breaking over a lot maybe last night. Breaking over enough to possibly let some spawning fish into the estuary.
We paddled down to the end of the river where this great blue heron was resting on a big rock.
Plugged up boat ramp
From there we headed back over to Penny Island and paddled onto the flooded island for a bit, as we could see the boat ramp was plugged up with kayaks. We stayed there for a bit, then headed on in for the day.
One of the rental people had the boat ramp all plugged up with kayaks and were standing on the ramp telling people what to do, so I was trying real hard not to get boat ramp rage, but it was difficult.
We approached the ramp and they hurried a bit. When the lady in charge finally got all the people into the water she turns around and leaves, leaving an unused kayak right in the middle of the boat ramp.
Obviously, she doesn’t have a clue that boat ramps are supposed to be kept clear so people can back down and load and unload their boats.
I thought it was good that she left and I didn’t have to lay into her about proper boat ramp etiquette.
Nice day, otherwise.