Sunday September 14, 2014 Monte Rio CA.
I drove on down to Jenner today to kayak, but when I got there, I decided to go on down to the river’s mouth overlook on highway one, in my car, to take a look.
I took some pictures of the area from the overlook.
Looking out to the Pacific ocean through the river’s open mouth, looking mostly south.
And looking up the river from the overlook.. If you look carefully, you can see the sand under the water that has been washed in from the ocean this summer, the brown part of the water coming in from the right. The high tides wash the sand in as the ocean water races into the river. There are some harbor seals resting on the washed in sand, but they are hard to see.
Here they are, resting on the washed in sand in the river.
And here are some of the harbor seals resting on the beach in the river’s mouth.
Back to Monte Rio to kayak
After taking the pictures, I decided to go back to Monte Rio to kayak for the day.
I stopped just past Duncan’s Mills at the fire station to check out the fish counters the biologists have installed across the river there. They put passive tags in some of the fish and have several of these tag trackers along the river and some of the creeks that come into the river.
Fish counters
Here is one of the big pipes they install in the river, not yet installed. Because of the loop in the pipe, the wires inside of them can tell which way the fish are traveling.
The river is down a bit right now, low tide here, so some of the pipes across the river are exposed.
Kayaking Monte Rio
I continued on to Monte Rio and put my boat in the water and headed on down stream at my slow pace.
This is my view just below Monte Rio.
I went over and sat in my boat just under that snag tree.
While I was sitting there, I heard a loud squawk, so I paddled out a bit to see what kind of birds were over my head?
I couldn’t make out the one on top.
But the lower one is a cormorant.
I headed on down the river about another quarter mile, sitting along the trees in my kayak, enjoying the day.
After a bit, I turned and headed back up the river to the Villa Grande hole where I sat for awhile, before continuing on.
This was my view from the Villa Grande hole.
I saw something in the weeds out of the corner of my eye and checking it out, it was a great blue heron fishing.
And I passed these birds resting on an old log.
I made it back up to the Monte Rio bridge where I sat for a bit, waiting for the boat ramp to get not so busy, before going in for the day.
I went on home for a nap, then puttered around the yard for the rest of the day.