River’s up, Wind’s Up, Escrow and the Big Stump in the Creek

Tuesday December 22, 2015 Guerneville CA.

An early morning storm

The rain had stopped by the time I got it going today. But it rained cats and dogs this morning in the wee hours so I expected the river to be up some.

And it looked like the rain was going to hold off until night time, so I decided to go down to Jenner to see if I could put my boat in the water.

Windy at Jenner

As I was driving into Jenner, I could see the river water was up and very muddy too. I didn’t mind that as far as going kayaking, but the wind was also up blowing pretty hard, so I drove down to the overlook at the mouth to have a look.

This was the view looking south from the overlook. You can see the wind waves on the river water.

Looking out over the river’s open mouth into the Pacific ocean, or west. There’s some harbor seals resting down there, but most of the birds have disappeared. Lots of muddy water is coming down the river and going out into the Pacific ocean.

The only time spawning fish are safe

Despite what most people think, when the river is muddy like this, nothing catches and eats the big fish that are coming up the river to spawn. It’s the only time the big fish are safe. No seals or sea lions or river otters or birds or people kill any big spawning fish at this time and won’t until the river clears up a bit. As long as the river is muddy, steelhead can go up to spawn and return to the ocean without being eaten. As far as know, there is no other time that this is true.

Anyway, here’s those harbor seals resting on the beach.

Muddy water

Looking at the end of the river and out to the Pacific ocean, north. You can see that the muddy water flows out into the ocean quite a ways.

While checking things out, I talked with a couple of people I knew down there that were also checking things out. Locals come down routinely to park for a bit and just enjoy the view and the goings on.

Jenner boat ramp

I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to put my boat in here for the day, but I needed to make one more check, just to be sure, so I stopped at the Jenner boat ramp to check things out. Nope, too windy here. Debrie seems to like to pile up on the boat ramp.

Monte Rio boat ramp

I drove back to Monte Rio to check out the boat ramp there and see if I wanted to put my boat in the water as there’s usually less wind in this area.

I drove down to the ramp watching the mallard ducks come to shore to greet me. Muddy water as you can see. Easy put in though. Some current, but I usually paddle down along the edges where the current is less.

This crow landed as I was watching.

And joined the ducks eating some grain a local fed them. You’re not supposed to feed the ducks, but no one has been able to stop people from doing that and personally, it doesn’t seem to hurt anything, except the ducks are friendlier here than other places which also seems to mellow out the other wild birds so they aren’t so skittish. That’s part of the reason it’s easy to get close up pictures of the bird wild life in the Monte Rio area.

The crow has joined the ducks for a fed.

Escrow appointment

Normally, I would have put my boat in the water here and done some exploring, but I had an appointment with the escrow people late in the afternoon, so I wouldn’t have as much time as I’d like, so I decided not to do that and went on home.

I had set up an appointment with the escrow people for late that afternoon figuring I would kayak first as  more rain is coming in soon, so I called and asked if I could come down now and they said yes, so I drove over to Santa Rosa and found the place right away, compared to yesterdays failed hunt for the place.

Signing wasn’t too bad as long as you pay attention to the escrow officer and mostly accept what they tell you and sign.

I headed back home after that and had a bit of a nap.

Big stump in the creek

Later I went outside to check the big pepperwood stump down in the creek, hoping it had floated down the stream during the rain storm, but it hadn’t and more debrie had piled up on it forming somewhat of a dam, but all the creek banks were still intact and not washed out, so all was well with that.

That’s the pepperwood stump down in the middle of the creek which is partially damning up the creek. The water has dropped a lot since the rain storm this morning.

Here’s a little closer picture of the pepperwood stump with the debrie lodged on it. Hopefully, the next rain storm will wash the whole thing down the creek. Maybe I’ll see it in Jenner someday?

I didn’t mention this morning’s rain storm knocked out our power so there wasn’t any this morning, but when I came home from the escrow signing, power was restored.

The rest of the day I spent doing not much of anything as things were still too wet from the recent rains.

That was my day.